The solution is simple: Event Scaling
A huge component of all DE’s in PvE is the scaling involved in it. If you have 30 players, that event scales up, creating harder enemies that take longer to kill. So far, this has been a great system that works well in PvE, with little or no possibility of griefing whatsoever.
When I walk into range of any obtainable point on the WvW map, I get a notification that there is a new event in the area. When I complete a capture or defense event, I get exp, karma, and moneyz for completion (or failure) of said event. So if it looks and acts like a Dynamic Event, why is it not scaled the same as one?
When 50 people start smashing a gate with multiple rams put up in seconds, they can easily break into a tower within a few minutes. Hours of spent holding said tower, spending tons of player-earned money on upgrading the tower, and it can be taken in minutes because an entire server came to hit it so fast, the defenders have little time to react and defend. So I ask, why are these events not scaled? If there are 50 players hitting the gate, why is that gate not scaled upwards? Why does getting a huge attacking force give such a huge advantage. That being said, having the 50 players will not cause you to lose, it will slow you down, nothing more. To be clear, the idea is to scale taking objectives according to the number of players present.
And the scaling works logically. If you have 50 players outside a besieged tower, and 50 people inside the tower, no scaling would take effect. It would be like all the usual primetime tower fights in EB. And if there are only 5 defenders against 20, the favor would be in the outmanned defenders. And neither would this break gameplay, or ruin it for anyone. It would simply promote better usage of numbers, better planning, and not promote getting 50 people and just running over everything.
And if a server has the outmanned buff, the scaling goes up even more. (Recently at an off-peak hour in SBI, HoD got most of their map’s numbers, and wiped us off the map in less than 30 minutes. Four fully upgraded towers and a fully upgraded keep lost in less than 30 minutes. We made some mistakes, for sure, but it happened so fast, there was little we could really do.) With this scaling of the gates, walls, and even NPC’s, it would slow the zerg down, and give time for the outmanned and beleaguered defenders to mount a decent defense, prolong defeat, and give more time to try different options and strategies to break the siege.
So instead of the 50 HoD hitting one tower at a time, and moving from there, it would be better and more efficient to have the 50 players to split up into 2, 3, or even smaller groups to take the towers. As my server was outmanned, with only maybe 20 players actively fighting, we would be hard pressed to defend all four of our towers at once, and keep/take back our supply camps simultaneously. But at the moment, there is even less chance of the 20 players to stop the 50 players at a single tower.
This scaling would promote more efficient defense, better offensive coordinating and tactics, and slow the snowball that can happen when you lose one tower.
Fun fact: This system would also limit the “Nightcapping” phenomenon and give favor to the outmanned defenders, give them time to surmount an appropriate defense, use different tactics, and ultimately slow down the zergs that appear so often.
I am sure this system has flaws, but I think this is the single best way to promote more skillful play, limit zergfests, and balance WvW overall. Most other suggestions seem to force players to either play, or not play, and this one does not limit a single person, while still balancing the outstanding issues.
P.S. Please keep this thread on topic, and avoid the craziness of other threads.