Guild Wars 2

I noticed a fair amount of people being upset with the ‘stale’ match-ups every week and wanted to know if people would generally want some change about once a year. The idea is that servers would compete like they currently do but at the end of the WvW year/season the top server would ‘win’.

When a server ‘wins’ all of the accounts that have been participating for the year/season (flagged active WvW for 50% of the year/season by the new population calculations) would receive 1600 gems, and would have to pick a new server (just like when a new account is created).

This gives servers a desire to be the top ranked server at the end of a season/year and also ensures the same server won’t win every time. It would also (hopefully) mix up the compositions (major guilds) of the servers but not to massively.

Also in-between every season/year the ratings of servers would be reset (since the players on the servers would be different) so they climb for best can start again.

Currently being on the top ranked server isn’t good for anything and there is no real drive to try to climb the ladder. Also the ladder has mostly stabilized itself as designed but that means no servers are going anywhere anytime soon.

One unfortunate downside is the concept of ‘server identity’ would be damaged by the forcing of players to find a new server once a year (only one server). Hopefully a year is a good amount of time to build a new ‘server identity’ for lower tier servers that got the winning guilds and the higher tier servers to continue on the patch to glory.

tl;dr
Give the top server every year a good reward (1600 gems) and them make the active players join a new server. Also reset server ratings at the same time.

Yes lets destroy every single community every single year and give gems to the people that stack on the winning servers.

No thanks.

briggah.7910:

Yes lets destroy every single community every single year and give gems to the people that stack on the winning servers.

No thanks.

First off, you clearly didn’t read. Only one server (per region) would get ‘destroyed’ a year not every single community. Also with the new populations changes it will be much harder to hopefully impossible to stack a server. I do agree it goes against the whole ‘server identity’ aspect. The real question at had is, ’What is more important, that a server always has the same identity for a long time with the same community, or there is something worth fighting for the top spot in WvW and keeping the match-ups interesting.

Just putting this out there, I enjoy playing WvW and don’t mind the ‘stale’ match-ups. However I don’t think I would mind switching things us once a year, and having a goal to get top server would make server communities have to work together more to reach that goal, maybe even making the community stronger.

Playing this out…

Jade Quarry wins Coverage Wars 2015. Hurray for JQ! They collect their gems and then get the boot to whatever non-full server they can squeeze onto. Since nobody wants to be on empty servers they will pile onto T3-T4 servers as much as possible. Jade Quarry itself will be left completely empty save for a few new players unfortunate enough to click on it. Nobody in their right mind would ever transfer down to JQ because it will be hopelessly empty. Even if the transfer was free JQ would never be able to compete again, meanwhile all other servers settle into slightly different stale matchups for an entire year.

The year passes and Blackgate wins Coverage Wars 2016! BG is then completely destroyed and falls just below JQ. Population adjusts and the next highest pop server just rotates into the guaranteed win slot. Either TC or YB. Not that it matters.

A few years pass of servers rotating into the win slot until GW3 comes out and GW2 dies off completely. Even if the population on the top few servers evens out, there will still ever only be 2-3 servers that are actually able to complete for this grand prize while the other servers just twiddle their thumbs until their number is called for the win slot.

@Boysenberry

Well this idea is dependent on the new population changes that are in place. All of the winning team (JQ in your example) will not be able to fit onto another server so they will be forced to spread out. The ranks get reset and who says that second(BG) will win next year. As there will be servers that used to be limited by numbers now have them and have players or even guilds from the previous winning server. There is a very big possibility that a rotation occurs and knowing that WvW population tends to ‘work together’ to exploit the system so this is probably the case. That is why this happening only once a year helps. Let’s say you are on server 4 in the list to get rotated to the win position. What is the likely-hood that you and your server are just going to sit there and wait 4 years to get your reward if you have the chance to win sooner? Something we will never know unless it was implemented.

Pink Ninja Man.4375:

briggah.7910:

Yes lets destroy every single community every single year and give gems to the people that stack on the winning servers.

No thanks.

First off, you clearly didn’t read. Only one server (per region) would get ‘destroyed’ a year not every single community.

I have a hard time reading since hooked on phonics didn’t work for me but when I see ideas that would destroy any communities I will disagree with them.. Ever been on a server that is considered dead and try to help rebuild it? If not maybe you should try some lower tiers and see what its like. I feel like for the past year we have been trying to rebuild but every server around us gets transfers yet guilds just leave us.. Its not an easy thing to do..

i only play to stomp people, i dont care if i win or lose in WvW aslong theres people to kill.

honestly i dunno why people give a kitten if they win or lose all people want is PvP, if they care about cappin stuff EoTM there amazing place no PvP and alot of kitten to cap.

@OP:

I like the idea of resetting the ratings every year. I just don’t think that anyone should receive a reward.

briggah.7910:

when I see ideas that would destroy any communities I will disagree with them.. Ever been on a server that is considered dead and try to help rebuild it? If not maybe you should try some lower tiers and see what its like. I feel like for the past year we have been trying to rebuild but every server around us gets transfers yet guilds just leave us.. Its not an easy thing to do..

Fair, I don’t particular want to destroy communities and I don’t think ArenaNet want to either.

On the flip side, yes trying to get the lower servers going is near impossible. However, redistributing the WvW population can help with that, and let’s be honest it isn’t going to redistribute itself any-time soon.

reddie.5861:

if they care about cappin stuff EoTM there amazing place no PvP and alot of kitten to cap.

Capping and wanting WvW to be more competitive are two completely different things. It would be nice to see servers trying to go up the ladder and adapt different WvW strategies and a shift in power every year/season.

style.6173:

I like the idea of resetting the ratings every year. I just don’t think that anyone should receive a reward.

The reward is just to offset the forced server transfer and give a bit of and incentive to try to win as a server. Are you suggesting rank reset and no server transfer force? I think this is a good idea as well the only concern is that people won’t move to try new servers and after a few weeks the ladder will be the same. I do like the idea of not destroying server communities and maybe a reset is going to get people to server hop. Maybe in a few months/years when the population stabilizes in WvW this will work perfectly because the gap in server population will be much closer.

More likely is when people are forced to move server they will do exactly that- the problem will be that new server they moved to doesn’t involve GW2- they’ve moved to another game.

Pink Ninja Man.4375:

When a server ‘wins’ all of the accounts that have been participating for the year/season (flagged active WvW for 50% of the year/season by the new population calculations) would receive 1600 gems, and would have to pick a new server (just like when a new account is created).

So… All of the guilds on the top server get together, have a chat, and move to the same server. A few weeks later that is top and we have the same issue again.

I don’t think this is a good idea.

Serious.7083:

So… All of the guilds on the top server get together, have a chat, and move to the same server. A few weeks later that is top and we have the same issue again.

I don’t think this is a good idea.

Except the other server’s would already have people on them and would get full after so many joined from the winning server. If a server’s population is so low that a whole server can transfer to it there are other problems in WvW.