Guild Wars 2

the game mechanics are broke, they have been broke and they will continue to be broke until the game developers fix the game.

put population caps on the maps so one side cannot severely outnumber the other side. Should have done this day 1 and it should be done day 245??

fix the game.

p.s re-posted to meet forum guidelines.

This is not the way to fix population problems. It is open to many forms of manipulation. Whining on the forums you are outnumbered will not solve your coverage problems, recruiting players to your server will.

Their are population caps on maps. Some servers do not have wvw that play during some time zone so opposing servers can just player vs door most of the map. The higher up tiers still have coverage issues during some time zones but not as much. Tier 1 being 24/7 wvw and all tiers below it have less and less coverage.

eithinan.9841:

This is not the way to fix population problems. It is open to many forms of manipulation. Whining on the forums you are outnumbered will not solve your coverage problems, recruiting players to your server will.

A cap is exactly the way to balance out the 3 competing servers. You can imagine that the 3 servers in any matches are on equal skill level, hence they’re on the same tier. However, without a population cap the server that yields the most WvW players will always come out on top. That is a kitten system because the victor is determined by their population rather than tactics or skills. That is our current system. There are WvW guilds out there that would destroy other oppositions if the odds were even. Now, I’m not talking about a dead cap where X population is set for each server on each battlegrounds. I’m saying at reset night start the cap at about 30 or 40 for each of the three servers. Then the cap would increase by 5 or 10 only after the previous cap of 40 has been met by all 3 competing servers. The cap would only stop increasing when it is not met by all three servers. This method would keep a constant balance between the three servers. It will require each server to play more strategically by relocation of population for each battlegrounds. Induces more tactics rather than constant zerg ball.

There is, literally, no point for ANet for have such tier system if they neglect the fact that each servers have different amount of WvW population. The current WvW mechanics support population domination so why do we even have tiers? Am I wrong to think that the tier you’re in is determined by your skill level? At least that’s how ANet views it through their SPvP tier. Why smash 3 servers together when each server’s WvW population differ so greatly? This is also destroying the population of lower tiers because people end up moving to other servers or strait up quitting the game.

The hogwash excuse that ANet wants everyone to enjoy all of the game’s content is literally destroying the game’s experience for people. Sure people want to enjoy, play, socialize, and most importantly, to compete. However, they enjoy it more when things are balanced. The people in general wants fairness and balance in any system/mechanics. The game stops being fun and starts to grow dull when balance is lost.

I, myself, has been falling asleep, playing other games, or quitting in the middle of dungeons because the game has become so dull to me. I used to be full of excitement at every reset night for WvW but lately I just want to log off. The only reason I even do WvW anymore is simply because I’m needed since we’ve been so outnumbered in last 3 weeks on all battlegrounds. I just feel like SPvP is hording all of the attention even though most of the game’s population only do SPvP just for kicks, not something they’re serious about. Yes, there are hardcore SPvP, but their numbers don’t compare to that of WvW nor PvE. I even went back to play that game that has devil in it’s name yesterday. (can’t say other game’s name on forum but you know what i mean) I told my guild that I was done for the night but I was just really bored and disgusted at the imbalance. If things don’t change soon then I see myself leaving for some upcoming MMO and I know I’m not alone in this. I’m just the one willing to say it.

xTiMeBoMBx.2863:

eithinan.9841:

This is not the way to fix population problems. It is open to many forms of manipulation. Whining on the forums you are outnumbered will not solve your coverage problems, recruiting players to your server will.

A cap is exactly the way to balance out the 3 competing servers. You can imagine that the 3 servers in any matches are on equal skill level, hence they’re on the same tier. However, without a population cap the server that yields the most WvW players will always come out on top. That is a kitten system because the victor is determined by their population rather than tactics or skills. That is our current system. There are WvW guilds out there that would destroy other oppositions if the odds were even. Now, I’m not talking about a dead cap where X population is set for each server on each battlegrounds. I’m saying at reset night start the cap at about 30 or 40 for each of the three servers. Then the cap would increase by 5 or 10 only after the previous cap of 40 has been met by all 3 competing servers. The cap would only stop increasing when it is not met by all three servers. This method would keep a constant balance between the three servers. It will require each server to play more strategically by relocation of population for each battlegrounds. Induces more tactics rather than constant zerg ball.

A player cap is an idiotic way to fix the problem of balance. Preventing people from playing WvW is most definitely not the way to save it. As I and others have repeatedly told you before, it’s also a great way to manipulate matches. Want to protect a big lead? Pull most of your players off a map so that your towers and keeps can be easily defended by the few people you leave there. And forcing teams to spread their players evenly across the maps doesn’t increase strategic content at all … it reduces it. We often attack an enemy’s BL in force in order to pull them out of ours.

Please don’t misunderstand me, though … I am not supporting the current situation. ANet’s system of tiers and matchmaking is most certainly messed up and will likely never give us proper matches. It needs to be changed, period, and I do agree with you that people will leave this game for one that does WvW-style play properly when the next one arrives. ANet has at best maybe six months to fix this thing … but player caps will kill it even sooner than that.

Cactus.2710:

A player cap is an idiotic way to fix the problem of balance. Preventing people from playing WvW is most definitely not the way to save it. As I and others have repeatedly told you before, it’s also a great way to manipulate matches. Want to protect a big lead? Pull most of your players off a map so that your towers and keeps can be easily defended by the few people you leave there. And forcing teams to spread their players evenly across the maps doesn’t increase strategic content at all … it reduces it. We often attack an enemy’s BL in force in order to pull them out of ours.

Please don’t misunderstand me, though … I am not supporting the current situation. ANet’s system of tiers and matchmaking is most certainly messed up and will likely never give us proper matches. It needs to be changed, period, and I do agree with you that people will leave this game for one that does WvW-style play properly when the next one arrives. ANet has at best maybe six months to fix this thing … but player caps will kill it even sooner than that.

I think you’ve misunderstood the cap system that I’ve suggested, or you didn’t read the whole thing at all and began to rant as soon as you saw the word “cap.” If you actually re-read it, I didn’t suggest a dead cap because only a dead cap can prevent people from playing. Plus, whether it be a dead cap or the cap I suggested, they can never be manipulated because a cap means you can’t go pass X amount of players for each battlegrounds. Whatever players each servers have on one battleground is set to stay there and fight. My suggestion was a constantly growing cap just as long as each server can meet the cap. For example, again, the cap starts at 40 for each battlegrounds. The cap would continuously increase by 10 for each battleground when it is met by all 3 servers there, this is to get people in queue in. The only time the cap would stop increasing is when it can’t be met by all three servers. When it can’t be met that would mean all three server has a balance number of people fighting each other. The player difference between all 3 servers would be only 1-10. No more 20 people, with 30 others in queue, fighting 50 people on the left and helpless against the other 50 to the right of a battleground.

With my suggestion there is no manipulation so I don’t where you got that idea from because it’s non sense. The cap I suggest would only increase when it is met by all 3 servers so this notion of one server pulling more people to another map, while leaving a small ground behind, to defend a big lead would be impossible. For instance the cap grew to 50 on battleground A and all 3 servers have 49 players fighting it out. The cap would stop at 50. Let’s just say you’re in one of the 3 server and you happen to be winning on battleground A and with a huge lead in total point. You look at the map and you saw your server is in bad shape on battleground B and the cap there has only reached 30. This would mean that your server and the other 2 servers have only gotten up to 29 players (+/- 1-10) on battleground B. However you can’t take your people from battleground A to B because there is already 29 players there fighting. Sadly, they happen to be losing but it is fair because they’re fighting against almost the exact numbers of players that they have. Being on the losing end with my suggested system would only mean you got outplayed by the attackers/defenders, not outmanned like the current system.

xTiMeBoMBx.2863:

Cactus.2710:

A player cap is an idiotic way to fix the problem of balance. Preventing people from playing WvW is most definitely not the way to save it. As I and others have repeatedly told you before, it’s also a great way to manipulate matches. Want to protect a big lead? Pull most of your players off a map so that your towers and keeps can be easily defended by the few people you leave there. And forcing teams to spread their players evenly across the maps doesn’t increase strategic content at all … it reduces it. We often attack an enemy’s BL in force in order to pull them out of ours.

Please don’t misunderstand me, though … I am not supporting the current situation. ANet’s system of tiers and matchmaking is most certainly messed up and will likely never give us proper matches. It needs to be changed, period, and I do agree with you that people will leave this game for one that does WvW-style play properly when the next one arrives. ANet has at best maybe six months to fix this thing … but player caps will kill it even sooner than that.

I think you’ve misunderstood the cap system that I’ve suggested, or you didn’t read the whole thing at all and began to rant as soon as you saw the word “cap.” If you actually re-read it, I didn’t suggest a dead cap because only a dead cap can prevent people from playing. Plus, whether it be a dead cap or the cap I suggested, they can never be manipulated because a cap means you can’t go pass X amount of players for each battlegrounds. Whatever players each servers have on one battleground is set to stay there and fight. My suggestion was a constantly growing cap just as long as each server can meet the cap. For example, again, the cap starts at 40 for each battlegrounds. The cap would continuously increase by 10 for each battleground when it is met by all 3 servers there, this is to get people in queue in. The only time the cap would stop increasing is when it can’t be met by all three servers. When it can’t be met that would mean all three server has a balance number of people fighting each other. The player difference between all 3 servers would be only 1-10. No more 20 people, with 30 others in queue, fighting 50 people on the left and helpless against the other 50 to the right of a battleground.

With my suggestion there is no manipulation so I don’t where you got that idea from because it’s non sense. The cap I suggest would only increase when it is met by all 3 servers so this notion of one server pulling more people to another map, while leaving a small ground behind, to defend a big lead would be impossible. For instance the cap grew to 50 on battleground A and all 3 servers have 49 players fighting it out. The cap would stop at 50. Let’s just say you’re in one of the 3 server and you happen to be winning on battleground A and with a huge lead in total point. You look at the map and you saw your server is in bad shape on battleground B and the cap there has only reached 30. This would mean that your server and the other 2 servers have only gotten up to 29 players (+/- 1-10) on battleground B. However you can’t take your people from battleground A to B because there is already 29 players there fighting. Sadly, they happen to be losing but it is fair because they’re fighting against almost the exact numbers of players that they have. Being on the losing end with my suggested system would only mean you got outplayed by the attackers/defenders, not outmanned like the current system.

If it’s not a dynamic cap it is worthless. Much of the disparity in WvW populations is caused by 24/7 coverage issues. Just because a map is balanced at one point of time does not at all mean it will be balanced even a couple of hours later, and in most cases it won’t be. I had assumed you realized that and therefore were proposing a more dynamic cap (which could then be manipulated), but I apparently gave you too much credit.

Keep your day job.

No one and I mean no one (unless your are a cutter) likes to play on a map when you are out manned. It’s not fun, plain and simple.

I agree there needs to be a fix, but a population cap to balance things isn’t the right way to go about it.

Think of it this way:
Three servers – on Friday night reset, each has 200 people jump into WvW. After three hours of playing, 100 people log off Server One. Coincidentally, Server One has a weak night crew, while Servers Two and Three continue on through the night.

Well, when does it balance out? When a Server One person leaves, does it kick a person from each of the other servers? If not, then there’s unbalance again, because OFTEN one of the servers has fewer players than the other two (if this wasn’t true, we wouldn’t have threads like this). If it DOES kick someone, who does it kick? How does it decide? What if you’re just about to pick up your loot bags, or just about to get credit for capturing a keep, or just about to lay siege with your guild crew?

Then you have to wait for someone else to join in one of the other servers. And finally, after 15, 30, 60 minutes of waiting, you’re able to get in… just as someone else leaves, kicking you out again. (This part of the example is a bit more extreme than above, but would and could still hold true.)

As much as no one wants to be outmanned, no one wants to be the guy selected to get kicked out in the middle of a night of entertaining/rewarding fights.

WvW is server vs server – bad idea, it just promotes time zone capping. Far better to have done Server v Itself that way any population would have a CHANCE of splitting between the 3 sides (orders). But then maybe not as most just seem to want to blob with skill lag and not have fun (But i expect some people will say they enjoy blobbing (and pressing 1 on the keyboard))

I’d prefer a change to the scoring system. The way it works now, you gain more by winning briefer periods of time where you are out-populating a server than you do winning by small amounts over long hours during prime time. As has been seen, this has an overall negative impact on the game’s population towards WvWvW. ArenaNet hoped that server transfers and such would balance things out, but that was sort of a naive approach to player behavior and obviously did not work out.

If the game divied up the match into mini-matches of even time periods and rewarded points for winning time periods, it would put each time period more in balance with each other. Your server may have drastically lost map area when your population was asleep, but you make that up through bonus points for winning more overall time periods during primetime. Until you do something like that, you will have the current situation where periods of population imbalance matter more than the more competitive times of day.

etiolate.9185:

I’d prefer a change to the scoring system. The way it works now, you gain more by winning briefer periods of time where you are out-populating a server than you do winning by small amounts over long hours during prime time. As has been seen, this has an overall negative impact on the game’s population towards WvWvW. ArenaNet hoped that server transfers and such would balance things out, but that was sort of a naive approach to player behavior and obviously did not work out.

If the game divided up the match into mini-matches of even time periods and rewarded points for winning time periods, it would put each time period more in balance with each other. Your server may have drastically lost map area when your population was asleep, but you make that up through bonus points for winning more overall time periods during primetime. Until you do something like that, you will have the current situation where periods of population imbalance matter more than the more competitive times of day.

I like this idea but I think such point mechanic can’t be possible because WvW is set this way, unless they remake/create a whole different WvW. Another issue is ANet has no way of calculating X amount of WvW players for each match-up from each server because they fluctuate so much each week.

Cactus, you have yet to explain how what I suggested can be manipulated other than saying it “can be manipulated.” Like how can anyone manipulate, let’s say, a cap that has reach 30, with my idea, it meant all 3 servers has around 29 players (+/-1-10). How can any one server rally in more people to that map, as you so suggested as possible manipulation, when the cap is at 30.

SilencedScream, yes I noticed that issue but coverage issue can’t be cured by anything. You saw how Orb of Power failed. You saw how useless outmanned buff is. you saw how pathetic/overpowered, depending on the force behind it, outbreak is. Well you can recruit for more people to fill in that coverage gap but then you’d be shoveling your coverage gap to the server from which you got those people. In other words, you’d just be passing on your problems to another server. For this issue I think etiolate’s suggestion would seem to work well.

funny enough, I log in this morning, it’s 11:05 AM EDT. DB has 50+, we have under 20 trying to hold Garrison.. guess how that turned out.

This isn’t fun. Let me say it again.. This isn’t fun.

All you can do with 50 vs 20 is lose. There is no strategy in this game that wins against that. Sure if all the stars align, you have siege down that hasn’t disappeared, etc etc etc.. you may be able to hold someone off.

I don’t care what the balance solution is, this isn’t fun.

I play this game 80% less than I used to and my guess is, a vast majority will jump to the next game when it arrives.

Just like culling was worked on day and night.. balanced matches should be worked on day and night if you want to have a wvw population that is worth talking about.

This isn’t fun.

-g

Score:

DB = 76776
YB = 34130
MA = 34025

15 min points

DB: 550
YB: 50
MA: 95

Less than 48 hours into the new match DB has double the other two, it is completing owning the other two servers.

This isn’t fun, this whole week will not be fun. Next week won’t be fun.

If you are lucky, you will find a few hours here or there when there is population balance.

This isn’t fun.

-g

Anything that restricts players from entering wvw is a bad idea period. They need to change the scoring so a heavily outmanned team can close the gap on ppt.

One example, make havoc teams contribute more to ppt…. Yaks worth more points… make capping a supply camp add points etc.

I personally like the differences in coverage amongst servers, it adds “personality” to each one and gives the server a goal to work towards.

SOR was ranked 17th, through recruiting and server organization etc we are in tier 1 now.

If servers weren’t split na and euro it would help with balance play from a time stand point

I’ve played WvW since headstart and I’ve always thought from the very beginning that there should be SOME mechanism to balance out one side being outnumbered, since that is done to some degree in virtually every other game to make it fair.

However, dynamically changing the number players each side is allowed suffers from the above mentioned problems, lowering the number of people who can play and needing to kick players to keep teams even.

Personally I don’t think you should change anything about the maximum number of players on each server, just give any server with less than maximum population a boost of some sort. I never played GW1, but I think an NPC similar to a Henchmen should replace the spot of any player who leaves.

Linked server queues like WOW are the only way to resolve numbers differential but it will ruin WvW by doing so.

There is a certain amount of server pride and enjoyment playing alongside the same peep’s day in and day out.

The next new MMO shouldn’t have this issue as everyone is going to be on one super server so it should resolve factions rolling with 5x the number of players at a given time slot.

Why cant they just get rid of transfer fee so players can change to a server they enjoy playing wvw in without paying 40g.

scootshoot.6583:

Linked server queues like WOW are the only way to resolve numbers differential but it will ruin WvW by doing so.

There is a certain amount of server pride and enjoyment playing alongside the same peep’s day in and day out.

The next new MMO shouldn’t have this issue as everyone is going to be on one super server so it should resolve factions rolling with 5x the number of players at a given time slot.

Yeh I’m jumping ship as soon as that MMO is out if ANet doesn’t get this balance system sorted out.

xTiMeBoMBx.2863:

scootshoot.6583:

Linked server queues like WOW are the only way to resolve numbers differential but it will ruin WvW by doing so.

There is a certain amount of server pride and enjoyment playing alongside the same peep’s day in and day out.

The next new MMO shouldn’t have this issue as everyone is going to be on one super server so it should resolve factions rolling with 5x the number of players at a given time slot.

Yeh I’m jumping ship as soon as that MMO is out if ANet doesn’t get this balance system sorted out.

Closed beta invites have already gone out. Will definitely try it out. If anything should expect far greater game performance in large scale battles due to a newer engine that takes advantage of multi core processors that are prevalent today. Also will support duo video card setups (sli, crossfire) as well.

scootshoot.6583:

xTiMeBoMBx.2863:

scootshoot.6583:

Linked server queues like WOW are the only way to resolve numbers differential but it will ruin WvW by doing so.

There is a certain amount of server pride and enjoyment playing alongside the same peep’s day in and day out.

The next new MMO shouldn’t have this issue as everyone is going to be on one super server so it should resolve factions rolling with 5x the number of players at a given time slot.

Yeh I’m jumping ship as soon as that MMO is out if ANet doesn’t get this balance system sorted out.

Closed beta invites have already gone out. Will definitely try it out. If anything should expect far greater game performance in large scale battles due to a newer engine that takes advantage of multi core processors that are prevalent today. Also will support duo video card setups (sli, crossfire) as well.

I know exactly which MMO you’re referring to, I signed up for it too, but let’s not talk about it anymore because I don’t want this thread locked. Anyway, ANet is not new to MMO and they pride in fairness, so I just don’t get why they’re so slow to react to imbalances.

xTiMeBoMBx.2863:

scootshoot.6583:

Linked server queues like WOW are the only way to resolve numbers differential but it will ruin WvW by doing so.

There is a certain amount of server pride and enjoyment playing alongside the same peep’s day in and day out.

The next new MMO shouldn’t have this issue as everyone is going to be on one super server so it should resolve factions rolling with 5x the number of players at a given time slot.

Yeh I’m jumping ship as soon as that MMO is out if ANet doesn’t get this balance system sorted out.

At least we agree on one thing …

xTiMeBoMBx.2863:

scootshoot.6583:

xTiMeBoMBx.2863:

scootshoot.6583:

Linked server queues like WOW are the only way to resolve numbers differential but it will ruin WvW by doing so.

There is a certain amount of server pride and enjoyment playing alongside the same peep’s day in and day out.

The next new MMO shouldn’t have this issue as everyone is going to be on one super server so it should resolve factions rolling with 5x the number of players at a given time slot.

Yeh I’m jumping ship as soon as that MMO is out if ANet doesn’t get this balance system sorted out.

Closed beta invites have already gone out. Will definitely try it out. If anything should expect far greater game performance in large scale battles due to a newer engine that takes advantage of multi core processors that are prevalent today. Also will support duo video card setups (sli, crossfire) as well.

I know exactly which MMO you’re referring to, I signed up for it too, but let’s not talk about it anymore because I don’t want this thread locked. Anyway, ANet is not new to MMO and they pride in fairness, so I just don’t get why they’re so slow to react to imbalances.

They sort of did it to themselves with what was it? free xfers for close to 3 months after launch? That’s a hella long time to allow bandwagoners to move from one server to the next.

the problem with haveing a dynamic player cap on each BL is that if red is attacking green and blue is attack green but green then just had 39 people one the map(given the next tier is give with 40) and then you get 40 of both sides on but red still has 10 people wanting in. or even worse green has 40 and red has 40 and both has 50 more that wants in but blue dont have a single person on the map so the cap dont increase.
and then there is the problem with wher all has 70+ people but now that blue has alot of people from a diffrent timezone giving them 2 hours more then the other 2 with70+ more but as we dont kick anyone out then they have 70 but now gren red has 20 or so each.

it is impossible to balance but one thing that can be done is eighter ban NA players from wvw on a EU server and the other way(and it is possible but ofc there is a way to go by it)

Pain.3756:

the game mechanics are broke, they have been broke and they will continue to be broke until the game developers fix the game.

put population caps on the maps so one side cannot severely outnumber the other side. Should have done this day 1 and it should be done day 245??

fix the game.

p.s re-posted to meet forum guidelines.

Pop caps are not a solution for the game format. There are solutions, but it requires resources from Anet they are not willing or able to commit.

A real fix would be to just get GvG in so WvW is for the care bears like Anet orginally intended.

Let me help illustrate a point.
http://imgur.com/l69YGXM
I can’t play against this at all.

xTiMeBoMBx.2863:

eithinan.9841:

This is not the way to fix population problems. It is open to many forms of manipulation. Whining on the forums you are outnumbered will not solve your coverage problems, recruiting players to your server will.

A cap is exactly the way to balance out the 3 competing servers. You can imagine that the 3 servers in any matches are on equal skill level, hence they’re on the same tier. However, without a population cap the server that yields the most WvW players will always come out on top.

So how do you explain SoR being in NA Tier 1 (second place mind you), while being the #12 most active server world wide?

I guess it’s not all just about numbers then.

Pain.3756:

No one and I mean no one (unless your are a cutter) likes to play on a map when you are out manned. It’s not fun, plain and simple.

Actually, I like going to BL’s where we have outmanned and practice trying to solo-capping camps, or just killing yaks. I think its kind of fun that I can be more suicidal with absolutely no negatives (no repair bill or lost points for my team). If I really do well, I might just get my team points. Thats not how I like to play all the time, but we aren’t always out-manned.

Coming from someone who loves to play outmanned, I agree on the side of the dynamics. My guild used to 5v30 all the time. And no armor damage? Makes us better players overall.

tom.7468:

Why cant they just get rid of transfer fee so players can change to a server they enjoy playing wvw in without paying 40g.

Because free transfers kittened up everything.

Improvement is needed but they may have to change the game style a bit.
A 24/7 turn based game perhaps……

etiolate.9185:

I’d prefer a change to the scoring system. The way it works now, you gain more by winning briefer periods of time where you are out-populating a server than you do winning by small amounts over long hours during prime time. As has been seen, this has an overall negative impact on the game’s population towards WvWvW. ArenaNet hoped that server transfers and such would balance things out, but that was sort of a naive approach to player behavior and obviously did not work out.

If the game divied up the match into mini-matches of even time periods and rewarded points for winning time periods, it would put each time period more in balance with each other. Your server may have drastically lost map area when your population was asleep, but you make that up through bonus points for winning more overall time periods during primetime. Until you do something like that, you will have the current situation where periods of population imbalance matter more than the more competitive times of day.

Good suggestion. Server caps aren’t necessary and ANet has already stated that they won’t prevent people from playing WvW to prevent night capping. There are two better ways to balance persistent stochastic server populations that are supposed to be about equal (on average) based on the tier system.

Averaging out scoring and upgrades over a longer time period is one way. It could also take the form of lengthening the process of capturing structures e.g. Requiring a keep to be defended for, say 30 minutes, while supplies and NPC reinforcements arrive. The other way is to have a buffer variable that makes up for population shortfalls. This currently exists in the form of the outmanned buff and breakout event serving as a force multiplier for the low population server, but it doesn’t really work that well. Instead, NPC’s could spawn from your base at regular intervals (in inverse proportion to your server’s population) and attack supply camps and towers along the main roads.

Dividing WvW into mini-matches would be interesting (I’m thinking sPvP style matches that determine the capture of nodes on a large grid), but it would require WvW to be changed entirely. Personally I am not holding my breath for any major WvW changes like these to be implemented.

No he is right, it needs a population cap, this would also solve the lag problems as well. All of it is due to way to many players allowed in the areas at one time, either the game or the servers can not handle it. Also it would balance the game out more as well for WvW, so the zergs don’t get so large.