Guild Wars 2

I’ve had some time to think about WvW population. Zerging, commanding and the introduction of EotM. I’m really positive about the map layout of Edge of the Mists and had epic times in this map.

However, when I visit Borderlands or Battlegrounds in WvW. Its deserted compared to EotM. Another problem is: when we leave our WvW map, its recaptured over night by a small zerg of golems. Upgrading is useless and demotivates players to even try WvW. Instead they join a zerg in EotM for more rewards and a more even matchmaking.

Here are some raw brainstormy idea’s that I think could improve WvW:
- To increase WvW population and split up zergs into small assault groups

• You will automatically respawn upon death in WvW and EotM
• When a side is outnumbered, building siege and repairing costs 50% supply.
• Champions and Veterans scale up dynamically

• Supply camps, Towers and Keeps can not be upgraded with money (read on for the suggested alternative)
  After taking a Supply camp, Tower or Keep the “capturing dynamic” event turns into “upgrading the tower” dynamic event. You have to escort a woodcutters party and kill the giant grub for example to allow the woodcutters to upgrade the tower walls.
  You have to mine ore and donate them to the iron smith for cannons. And help the drill instructor train his guards for the supply camps. These events start when “upgrading walls” has been bought with supply. The event will not disable when failed, but restart after a few minutes. The difficulty increases as upgrades are achieved.

• Sentries are replaced by Veterans that match the side they are standing with, like in EotM with a reward chest.
• Each supply camp gets a Jumping puzzle with machanics that can wike a zerg instantly (like spikes, ledges that tilt and fire shafts to demotivate great zergs to participate) that takes about 1 minute to complete. A Champion Sentry needs to be defeated and a capture point captured on top of the JP. This brings us to the next point.
• If both camps and overlook points are captured by allies, scouts and foes will swarm the terretory. If both camps and overlook points are captured by enemy forces, all guards disappear. Giving them a free passage trough that terretory.

Feel free to share what you think about these ideas. Be constructive and at least explain and give alternatives.

More pve isnt a solution to wvw. Pls keep it in EoTM, people then have a clear choice as to the type or environment they wish to play in.

Coverage has always been important to server success, you have the option to move server if the night capping is too demotivating for you.

Terrible ideas, especially the jump puzzle one. Please keep any pve ideas in the pve section.

Now that they have been mentioned, Anet will start work on them as ‘improvements’ to the wvw pvp experience….

Victory.2879:

Terrible ideas, especially the jump puzzle one. Please keep any pve ideas in the pve section.

Now that they have been mentioned, Anet will start work on them as ‘improvements’ to the wvw pvp experience….

As I’ve said this is mere brainstorming. Coming up with a possible solution to this problem. If you have a fully covered WvW server doesn’t mean the problems do not exist in other servers. As PvE is part of WvW I can see no reason to not bring in PvE idea’s, play tournaments or hotjoin if you really want to play in a competative pvp environment without pve.

I find your lack over vision and constructive feedback frustrating (let alone the flamy attitude)

Sevenn.3085:

More pve isnt a solution to wvw. Pls keep it in EoTM, people then have a clear choice as to the type or environment they wish to play in.

Coverage has always been important to server success, you have the option to move server if the night capping is too demotivating for you.

This ^^. eotm is for PvE. Keep that there.

Please NO!

There are a lot of players (besides me), who utterly hate:
- jumping puzzles
- Edge of the Mists

EotM is a good idea on paper (I love the idea of the overflows), but currently the implementation is bad (nightmare map design for roaming, incredibly boring zergy fights with no point, too many powerful NPCs, added totally unnecessary buffs and new mechanisms), so please do NOT force your players to play it.

In fact, I once again propose reverting the Borderland changes (September 17th, 2013). By now it is obvious that the ruins of power (which replaced the BL lake) are a failure. Very few players spend time there and the changes actually DECREASED the popularity of BL maps. I used to dislike EB due its blobby nature and huge lag. Now I am forced to play EB, because it is only decent WvWvW map remaining. The borderland bloodlust buffs have received almost unanimous negative feedback from the player base. Instead of removing them, Arenanet shaved their effectiveness.

There was a lot of good user feedback how to redesign the BL maps, including:
- doing something to the Northern East and West parts, let’s face it the Skritt and Tamili are superfluous
- no map wide bonuses to stats, but more objectives to hold, defend and contest, which also give players rewards
- restore the lake, but make it have a small partially underwater keep in the center. The central location of the lake keep would make it a good location for epic battles, I also like the idea that the you cannot play most siege in the water, thus attacking that lake keep wouldn’t require different strategy

Deniara Devious.3948:

Please NO!

There are a lot of players (besides me), who utterly hate:
- jumping puzzles
- Edge of the Mists

EotM is a good idea on paper (I love the idea of the overflows), but currently the implementation is bad (nightmare map design for roaming, incredibly boring zergy fights with no point, too many powerful NPCs, added totally unnecessary buffs and new mechanisms), so please do NOT force your players to play it.

In fact, I once again propose reverting the Borderland changes (September 17th, 2013). By now it is obvious that the ruins of power (which replaced the BL lake) are a failure. Very few players spend time there and the changes actually DECREASED the popularity of BL maps. I used to dislike EB due its blobby nature and huge lag. Now I am forced to play EB, because it is only decent WvWvW map remaining. The borderland bloodlust buffs have received almost unanimous negative feedback from the player base. Instead of removing them, Arenanet shaved their effectiveness.

There was a lot of good user feedback how to redesign the BL maps, including:
- doing something to the Northern East and West parts, let’s face it the Skritt and Tamili are superfluous
- no map wide bonuses to stats, but more objectives to hold, defend and contest, which also give players rewards
- restore the lake, but make it have a small partially underwater keep in the center. The central location of the lake keep would make it a good location for epic battles, I also like the idea that the you cannot play most siege in the water, thus attacking that lake keep wouldn’t require different strategy

Here, here.

Most of the people I know in WvW see EoTM as a good spot to dump achievement farmers, PVE content, and karma train loot whores while we go fight. The only time we go to EoTM is if we have nothing better to do.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Please NO!

There are a lot of players (besides me), who utterly hate:
- jumping puzzles
- Edge of the Mists

EotM is a good idea on paper (I love the idea of the overflows), but currently the implementation is bad (nightmare map design for roaming, incredibly boring zergy fights with no point, too many powerful NPCs, added totally unnecessary buffs and new mechanisms), so please do NOT force your players to play it.

In fact, I once again propose reverting the Borderland changes (September 17th, 2013). By now it is obvious that the ruins of power (which replaced the BL lake) are a failure. Very few players spend time there and the changes actually DECREASED the popularity of BL maps. I used to dislike EB due its blobby nature and huge lag. Now I am forced to play EB, because it is only decent WvWvW map remaining. The borderland bloodlust buffs have received almost unanimous negative feedback from the player base. Instead of removing them, Arenanet shaved their effectiveness.

There was a lot of good user feedback how to redesign the BL maps, including:
- doing something to the Northern East and West parts, let’s face it the Skritt and Tamili are superfluous
- no map wide bonuses to stats, but more objectives to hold, defend and contest, which also give players rewards
- restore the lake, but make it have a small partially underwater keep in the center. The central location of the lake keep would make it a good location for epic battles, I also like the idea that the you cannot play most siege in the water, thus attacking that lake keep wouldn’t require different strategy

While I agree with you on EoTM and think ANET should keep it separate from regular WvW, I actually like the bloodlust ruin area. It is much better than the old lake area and adds more space and variety of terrain for roamers. And please no more underwater combat, I feel the way it is now in the bloodlust ruin is the best. All ANET need to do is just to add a bit more incentives/rewards for people that cap the three bloodlust.

It seems like you guys fail to see the gravity of this problem:

No jumping puzzles, the new way of upgrading maybe, gets people working on their own instead of following a blob. NPCs that scale, i relize Eotm have powerful npcs, npcs in wvw should scale to that lvl or even more. Say someones running a 80 man blob, while youre outnumbered in a map of 15, why not make an NPC as strong as SMs buffed lord with 10x the hp =o. Npcs that actually can help ALOT instead of getting steamrolled the moment a zerg decides to tickle it.

And bigger map with MORE chokepoints where smaller groups can have a chance to fight and yes outnumbered buff can give less supply required to build and maybe the ability to hold/build faster. Siege razor type npcs maybe an option to be hired but will disapear after you reach a certain amount of numbers or the ratio between the amount you have and the enemy has starts to become equal.

The problem is, not every server has:

• Players online 24/7
• Enough money to afford upgrades
• Organized groups of players

Capturing the entire map should gradually become harder and harder. But in WvW the steepness is not enough. One organized server can easily capture the entire map as seen in that screenshot, upgrade each and every tower, and still get away with it as they are not the ones being outnumbered.

Adding in NPC’s (that require you to capture something that is hard to do, but does not require a zerg). Like the ones after doing the jumping puzzle (or anything else as it was just an example). Will create some steepness and give the outnumbered players a chance to at least achieve something.

Forget the jumping puzzles and NPC’s if you have ANY better idea!

Knackers.8562:

No jumping puzzles, the new way of upgrading maybe, gets people working on their own instead of following a blob. NPCs that scale, i relize Eotm have powerful npcs, npcs in wvw should scale to that lvl or even more. Say someones running a 80 man blob, while youre outnumbered in a map of 15, why not make an NPC as strong as SMs buffed lord with 10x the hp =o. Npcs that actually can help ALOT instead of getting steamrolled the moment a zerg decides to tickle it.

Awful idea. The last thing WvW needs is more NPCs and more powerful NPCs. We’re here to fight other people not PvE.

Band-aid solutions of buffing NPCs when your outnumbered do nothing but make WvW into PvE, except with far lower rewards. Who wants to play that?

Anet really needs to address the population issues that causes outmanned buffs.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Knackers.8562:

No jumping puzzles, the new way of upgrading maybe, gets people working on their own instead of following a blob. NPCs that scale, i relize Eotm have powerful npcs, npcs in wvw should scale to that lvl or even more. Say someones running a 80 man blob, while youre outnumbered in a map of 15, why not make an NPC as strong as SMs buffed lord with 10x the hp =o. Npcs that actually can help ALOT instead of getting steamrolled the moment a zerg decides to tickle it.

Awful idea. The last thing WvW needs is more NPCs and more powerful NPCs. We’re here to fight other people not PvE.

Band-aid solutions of buffing NPCs when your outnumbered do nothing but make WvW into PvE, except with far lower rewards. Who wants to play that?

Anet really needs to address the population issues that causes outmanned buffs.

He said “scaling NPC’s” which means they are equally hard to kill by one person or 100 persons. Which in my optics promotes more good than bad.

By the way you didn’t contribute to a solution yet.

Simply stating that anet needs to populate wvw maps isn’t nearly a solution to the problem without stating how they should do that…

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Knackers.8562:

No jumping puzzles, the new way of upgrading maybe, gets people working on their own instead of following a blob. NPCs that scale, i relize Eotm have powerful npcs, npcs in wvw should scale to that lvl or even more. Say someones running a 80 man blob, while youre outnumbered in a map of 15, why not make an NPC as strong as SMs buffed lord with 10x the hp =o. Npcs that actually can help ALOT instead of getting steamrolled the moment a zerg decides to tickle it.

Awful idea. The last thing WvW needs is more NPCs and more powerful NPCs. We’re here to fight other people not PvE.

Band-aid solutions of buffing NPCs when your outnumbered do nothing but make WvW into PvE, except with far lower rewards. Who wants to play that?

Anet really needs to address the population issues that causes outmanned buffs.

He said “scaling NPC’s” which means they are equally hard to kill by one person or 100 persons. Which in my optics promotes more good than bad.

By the way you didn’t contribute to a solution yet.

Simply stating that anet needs to populate wvw maps isn’t nearly a solution to the problem without stating how they should do that…

Still a terrible idea. We’re not here to PvE. And here’s my contribution: Don’t waste dev time doing band-aid fixes (of which EoTM is one) when it is better spent fixing the root issue.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Knackers.8562:

No jumping puzzles, the new way of upgrading maybe, gets people working on their own instead of following a blob. NPCs that scale, i relize Eotm have powerful npcs, npcs in wvw should scale to that lvl or even more. Say someones running a 80 man blob, while youre outnumbered in a map of 15, why not make an NPC as strong as SMs buffed lord with 10x the hp =o. Npcs that actually can help ALOT instead of getting steamrolled the moment a zerg decides to tickle it.

Awful idea. The last thing WvW needs is more NPCs and more powerful NPCs. We’re here to fight other people not PvE.

Band-aid solutions of buffing NPCs when your outnumbered do nothing but make WvW into PvE, except with far lower rewards. Who wants to play that?

Anet really needs to address the population issues that causes outmanned buffs.

He said “scaling NPC’s” which means they are equally hard to kill by one person or 100 persons. Which in my optics promotes more good than bad.

By the way you didn’t contribute to a solution yet.

Simply stating that anet needs to populate wvw maps isn’t nearly a solution to the problem without stating how they should do that…

Still a terrible idea. We’re not here to PvE. And here’s my contribution: Don’t waste dev time doing band-aid fixes (of which EoTM is one) when it is better spent fixing the root issue.

Not exactly PVE, too many servers not enough wvw dedicated, the balance between numbers is never going to be fixed, or it will at least take a long long time, maybe even years. Scaling NPCs just helps the lower numbered crew fight, say youre having a 15 man crew at night defending againts a server that has 40 ~ 50 nightshift. Why not add something to help them, such as scaling NPCs that actually are able to fight and contribute to the lack of numbers.

That would motivate the lower numbers to actually defend and fight back. And adding a usefull outnumbered buff such as building faster/needing less supply would also help. The idea is to scale the people to fight at a more equal strength instead of numbers just steamrolling everything. Besides, when 50 people are steamrolling maps at night its just PvD which doesnt make any much difference from pve champ trains =/

style.6173:

More pve isnt a solution to wvw. Pls keep it in EoTM

/ close thread

No discussion possible here.

People that have not experienced the problems of an underpopulated wvw server would rather close their eyes instead of bringing in idea’s to fix this problem. Some even state the problem does not exist.

ANYTHING is possible to implement. Something like (if wvw map population > 100 = no additional NPC’s). But your lack of creativity and your free wins leave you to save the current broken system no matter what.

Just look around the WvW forums and good luck trying to keep up with lots of other posts about this problem.

On SBI we had about 10 people roaming around tonight in EB (scattered). One other server had about the same numbers, and the winning server had a blob of 50 people doing golem rushes.

If a few guild break apart or change server it becomes apparent that the game mode can’t sustain itself, at least in its current form.

Something must be done because there is little fun to be had when all you can do is take camps.

Solution:
Merge the servers by population into 3 factions
Make EOTM count for PPT, remove the overflow, make EOTM matches last 24 hours
Have daily WvW scores in a Weekly matchup (week score on 7)
Have only 1 borderland map which one of the 3 faction must defend (changes at daily reset)

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

People that have not experienced the problems of an underpopulated wvw server would rather close their eyes instead of bringing in idea’s to fix this problem. Some even state the problem does not exist.

Change your server : FIXED

Thinking of ways to attract more pveers/achievement hunters to play on your under populated wvw server : NOT FIXED

Sevenn.3085:

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

People that have not experienced the problems of an underpopulated wvw server would rather close their eyes instead of bringing in idea’s to fix this problem. Some even state the problem does not exist.

Change your server : FIXED

Thinking of ways to attract more pveers/achievement hunters to play on your under populated wvw server : NOT FIXED

Why don’t YOU first read trough my post before even attempt to post something ridiculous like this again. As attracting PVE’ers wasn’t nearly part of the fix. And please explain how switching servers improves any imbalances in WVW? Because its been a fact that it does the exact opposite.

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

Sevenn.3085:

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

People that have not experienced the problems of an underpopulated wvw server would rather close their eyes instead of bringing in idea’s to fix this problem. Some even state the problem does not exist.

Change your server : FIXED

Thinking of ways to attract more pveers/achievement hunters to play on your under populated wvw server : NOT FIXED

Why don’t YOU first read trough my post before even attempting to post something ridiculous like this again. As attracting PVE’ers wasn’t nearly part of the fix. And please explain how switching servers improves any imbalances in WVW? Because its been a fact that it does the exact opposite.

I have read all your QQ

kittenty solutions to a problem of under population on your server.

The problems you list are:
Lose stuff through night
Wont upgrade cause golems kill it at night
Friends go EoTM for more loot

move to a server that isnt under populated and you can upgrade your stuff with people to defend through night and you nub zergling friends can join 1 spamming trains to get their loot without going on EoTM

So no need to propose lots of ridiculous changes when You can make a change yourself and your problems are fixed.

I am pleased i can help you see this.

Sevenn.3085:

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

Sevenn.3085:

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

People that have not experienced the problems of an underpopulated wvw server would rather close their eyes instead of bringing in idea’s to fix this problem. Some even state the problem does not exist.

Change your server : FIXED

Thinking of ways to attract more pveers/achievement hunters to play on your under populated wvw server : NOT FIXED

Why don’t YOU first read trough my post before even attempting to post something ridiculous like this again. As attracting PVE’ers wasn’t nearly part of the fix. And please explain how switching servers improves any imbalances in WVW? Because its been a fact that it does the exact opposite.

I have read all your QQ

kittenty solutions to a problem of under population on your server.

The problems you list are:
Lose stuff through night
Wont upgrade cause golems kill it at night
Friends go EoTM for more loot

move to a server that isnt under populated and you can upgrade your stuff with people to defend through night and you nub zergling friends can join 1 spamming trains to get their loot without going on EoTM

So no need to propose lots of ridiculous changes when You can make a change yourself and your problems are fixed.

I am pleased i can help you see this.

Obviously you haven’t read my post before your last post speaking about attracting PVE achievement farmers. And stop repeating “server switching” as I’m looking for a fix to the problem. Not a fix to solve the problem of an individual (like you must’ve overread in my post before this).

Adding in NPC’s was just an example of a fix, it hasn’t nearly been worked out. But anything but server switching is better. As more people switch servers, more underpopulated servers appear.

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

People that have not experienced the problems of an underpopulated wvw server would rather close their eyes instead of bringing in idea’s to fix this problem. Some even state the problem does not exist.

I know very well how it feels to be outnumbered side. You think our server doesn’t “enjoy” that “buff”. Want a recent screen shot? I remember long time ago situations where enemy controlled all of own borderland, we didn’t even have a sentry on that map. Everyone else rage quitted or left to other maps. It was just me and 2 upleveled characters on the map. It is an uphill battle. First take some supply camps, then tower or two, then a keep and so on. And constantly afraid of enemy blob who might come to wipe you. I also know how “nice” it feels to be spawn camped. Have enemy zerg (or two) wait just outside your spawn point and farm if you if you happen to come out.

Forcing people to do jumping puzzles is adding more pve events is not a solution. Most of the hard core WvWvW players here in EU really dislike the increased pve elements in WvWvW. Majority wants more even fights against other human players. We don’t want Living story or more powerful NPCs or scaling NPCs or added events for WvWvW. There is already a game mode, which has them all and that is called pve.

Everybody knows that differences in coverage are among the top problems of WvWvW. Arenanet should give player incentives to transfer to low ranking servers. First of all the server transfer costs should be relative to its WvWvW rating/rank. The higher the rank, the higher the transfer cost. The bottom 3rd of servers should have free transfers. The world population numbers in pve should not affect transfer costs as you can always guest for pve.

I know but jumping puzzle was just an example. Let me give you the idea behind the example, and forget the jumping puzzle entirely.

• I want anet to implement a system where capturing an entire map becomes exponentially harder to achieve. So capturing your own keep and towers should be cake.
  Capturing further laying tower should be easy. Capturing other camps or other servers towers should be harder. (I gave the example of npc’s scouting the area). It could be anything.
• I wanted players while being outnumbered be able to contribute. By doing something, while harder and less effective, still more effective then it is now. (50% supply cost while outnumbered maybe). (Or keeps being easier to defend while being outnumbered).
• I want maps to be guarded somewhat, so that it’s not required to have 24/7 coverage.
• And finally, the jumping puzzle to promote small groups to contribute in a way.

This could be entirely implemented without really affecting normal populated servers. And it adds pve only to support the smaller groups of players. Right now its player zerg of 100 vs some small groups of 7 maybe. Do you honestly think thats fun? Even numbers of zergs are actually fun. But thats only happening in evenly populated servers.

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

I know but jumping puzzle was just an example. Let me give you the idea behind the example, and forget the jumping puzzle entirely.

• I want anet to implement a system where capturing an entire map becomes exponentially harder to achieve. So capturing your own keep and towers should be cake.
  Capturing further laying tower should be easy. Capturing other camps or other servers towers should be harder. (I gave the example of npc’s scouting the area). It could be anything.
• I wanted players while being outnumbered be able to contribute. By doing something, while harder and less effective, still more effective then it is now. (50% supply cost while outnumbered maybe). (Or keeps being easier to defend while being outnumbered).
• I want maps to be guarded somewhat, so that it’s not required to have 24/7 coverage.
• And finally, the jumping puzzle to promote small groups to contribute in a way.

This could be entirely implemented without really affecting normal populated servers. And it adds pve only to support the smaller groups of players. Right now its player zerg of 100 vs some small groups of 7 maybe. Do you honestly think thats fun? Even numbers of zergs are actually fun. But thats only happening in evenly populated servers.

WvW is explicitly designed for large numbers of players to be participating. The beauty of it it the game-mode also leave plenty of room for solo-roaming, and small-group action.

To address your points:

1) It already is – WP advantage/disadvantage pretty much seals this one on it’s own. The difficulty in capturing enemy positions increases the further you get from your WPs. Additionally the maps are specifically designed to provide advantages to defenders in their home territory. In EBG the two closest towers in each area are easily covered with siege from the respective keeps. On the borderlands the home diamond is protected by garrison/citadel coverage and terrain. Your suggestions in this regard would actually make small group attacks on targets behind enemy lines more difficult and hurt an outnumbered server more.

2) There is always something for outnumbered players to do right now. I’ve personally soloed camps to capture, I know of people on my server who have solo captured towers, and breached keeps. It takes one person to turn mercs. I’ve also seen 3 people in a properly sieged tower hold off massive zergs to the point of preventing capture, keeps are no different. It takes 5 baseline people to build a superior ram, and one ram is all you need. Especially versus paper gates. It takes 3 to build a guild catapult. Not to mention what an Omega with a couple of people assisting can do.

3) If you want a map guarded recruit guards. Complaining that a game mode designed to be running 24/7 rewards teams that play 24/7 over those that don’t takes a special kind of logic. Or the absence of any.

4) Already covered with my second. But additionally, how does encouraging small groups to not participate in the ongoing battle help in any way?

Perfectly even numbered zergs almost never happen outside of GvG (or maybe tier 1). A qued blob is going to be around 80 not 100. Do small groups get caught and rolled? Absolutely. It happens no matter what server you are on. It’s part of the danger and challenge of doing small-group action. As a small team your goal is to take nodes and not get squashed, not to kill an enemy zerg. If you don’t like that kind of play, if you want the big fights, you are left with two choices, recruit or change servers.

Basharic.1654:

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

I know but jumping puzzle was just an example. Let me give you the idea behind the example, and forget the jumping puzzle entirely.

• I want anet to implement a system where capturing an entire map becomes exponentially harder to achieve. So capturing your own keep and towers should be cake.
  Capturing further laying tower should be easy. Capturing other camps or other servers towers should be harder. (I gave the example of npc’s scouting the area). It could be anything.
• I wanted players while being outnumbered be able to contribute. By doing something, while harder and less effective, still more effective then it is now. (50% supply cost while outnumbered maybe). (Or keeps being easier to defend while being outnumbered).
• I want maps to be guarded somewhat, so that it’s not required to have 24/7 coverage.
• And finally, the jumping puzzle to promote small groups to contribute in a way.

This could be entirely implemented without really affecting normal populated servers. And it adds pve only to support the smaller groups of players. Right now its player zerg of 100 vs some small groups of 7 maybe. Do you honestly think thats fun? Even numbers of zergs are actually fun. But thats only happening in evenly populated servers.

WvW is explicitly designed for large numbers of players to be participating. The beauty of it it the game-mode also leave plenty of room for solo-roaming, and small-group action.

To address your points:

1) It already is – WP advantage/disadvantage pretty much seals this one on it’s own. The difficulty in capturing enemy positions increases the further you get from your WPs. Additionally the maps are specifically designed to provide advantages to defenders in their home territory. In EBG the two closest towers in each area are easily covered with siege from the respective keeps. On the borderlands the home diamond is protected by garrison/citadel coverage and terrain. Your suggestions in this regard would actually make small group attacks on targets behind enemy lines more difficult and hurt an outnumbered server more.

2) There is always something for outnumbered players to do right now. I’ve personally soloed camps to capture, I know of people on my server who have solo captured towers, and breached keeps. It takes one person to turn mercs. I’ve also seen 3 people in a properly sieged tower hold off massive zergs to the point of preventing capture, keeps are no different. It takes 5 baseline people to build a superior ram, and one ram is all you need. Especially versus paper gates. It takes 3 to build a guild catapult. Not to mention what an Omega with a couple of people assisting can do.

3) If you want a map guarded recruit guards. Complaining that a game mode designed to be running 24/7 rewards teams that play 24/7 over those that don’t takes a special kind of logic. Or the absence of any.

4) Already covered with my second. But additionally, how does encouraging small groups to not participate in the ongoing battle help in any way?

Perfectly even numbered zergs almost never happen outside of GvG (or maybe tier 1). A qued blob is going to be around 80 not 100. Do small groups get caught and rolled? Absolutely. It happens no matter what server you are on. It’s part of the danger and challenge of doing small-group action. As a small team your goal is to take nodes and not get squashed, not to kill an enemy zerg. If you don’t like that kind of play, if you want the big fights, you are left with two choices, recruit or change servers.

One thing you forget about is the major difference of server population, which we try to balance out in some way in this thread.

1) WP distance is a huge advantage/disadvantage. Only if the server population is equal. 100 people fighting a group in a 6 people terretory face 0% disadvantage. Mainly because well… they win the fight. They can hard rez eachother, not having to use the WP

2) Of course there is something to do for outnumbered players if they can slip past enemy zergs. But what I meant is: things to do for small groups. Splitting zergs and making small groups more efficient. Because really… capturing a supply camp does not really help as much as joining the commanders zerg.

3) What do “some guards” stand against a huge enemy zerg? If any player wants to put the money/effort to buy them in the first place (for their keep which will be recaptured in minutes)?

4) Thats the problem! The way people think. They do not participate in the battle at all! With this system its just one massive zerg. Perhaps with some new mechanics the game requires you to play smart. With smaller groups. And not follow the brainless zerg and spam 1.

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

One thing you forget about is the major difference of server population, which we try to balance out in some way in this thread.

1) WP distance is a huge advantage/disadvantage. Only if the server population is equal. 100 people fighting a group in a 6 people terretory face 0% disadvantage. Mainly because well… they win the fight. They can hard rez eachother, not having to use the WP

2) Of course there is something to do for outnumbered players if they can slip past enemy zergs. But what I meant is: things to do for small groups. Splitting zergs and making small groups more efficient. Because really… capturing a supply camp does not really help as much as joining the commanders zerg.

3) What do “some guards” stand against a huge enemy zerg? If any player wants to put the money/effort to buy them in the first place (for their keep which will be recaptured in minutes)?

4) Thats the problem! The way people think. They do not participate in the battle at all! With this system its just one massive zerg. Perhaps with some new mechanics the game requires you to play smart. With smaller groups. And not follow the brainless zerg and spam 1.

I didn’t forget anything you choose to ignore my response to it. There is very little ArenaNet can do to compensate for severe population imbalance that won’t fundamentally alter the game mode or shut it down to “off time” okayers.

They can’t boost rewards to far because of farmers – they have, infact, been forced to dial back rewards. See Yak escorts.

Any significant amount of NPC power added to slow a zerg down is going to shut down small-team action completely.

Adding other stuff to do besides fighting or taking vital nodes does nothing for the game mode, take a look at Bloodlust and see how well more small-team nodes have helped the little guys. Hint: They haven’t.

I’m sorry, but your pitched ideas demonstrate the axiom of “A computer is a lite brite for bad ideas.”

I, like any WvW player outside of T1, have played outmanned. And I’m not gonna sugar coat this for you. You are flat out completely, 100 percent wrong on point 2. I’ve seen small teams delay upgrade completions for hours giving their servers time to try and take a garrison or keep before it is upgraded. But there is nothing small teams can do more efficiently than a large team. You keep ignoring the fact that if you could make splitting into small teams more efficient the high population servers are always going to have MORE small teams doing more things than a low population team can field. Not the least of which is linking up 2 or 3 small teams (aka making a zerg) to deal with any of the small teams on a low pop server that do put up a fight.

I have personally chased a 25-30 person zerg off of towers with a sum total of three people. One trebuchet and two acs do the job for most things. You place the treb where it can hit the gate and can turn to hit the likely cata spot, ACs cover the close approaches so they can’t build anything right on your walls. This will stop everything short of omega golems, and some of the sneakier siege placements.

As to point 4, ArenaNet can only encourage certain player behaviors, they cannot enforce anything besides the basics of shared loot/tags.

If you want your server’s behavior to change, your choices are to build your server up into a fighting force during your playtime or move to a server that already has one.