Guild Wars 2

I am a player in SBI and so my suggestion is based entirely on the battle between HoD vs SBI vs ET but some of these suggestions might benefit the game overall. Over the weekend, SBI and ET were able to amass a significant point advantage over HoD but in less than one night, all those points we amassed are now pointless due to the lack of any competition during NA off peak hours. The current scoring system unfortunately punishes NA players for sleeping, working, having less oceanic players, but more importantly it punishes NA players for daring to choose an NA server. A counter argument could be made that it’s a 24/7 battle deal with it, well from my experience given the choice between dealing with it and not aka quitting guess which one players usually choose? I think now is the time to change it before ppl start completely giving up.

Here is what I propose, some of them like the first solution is going to be unpopular but think of it as “for the greater good”.

1. Create 3 oceanic servers and require all oceanic players to play on those servers. Of course this is dependent on the implementation of guesting and influence transfer.

1. Acknowledge that people have to sleep and stop punishing players on their home turf. The implementation would be as follows: 12 am -12 pm accept these as off peak and 12 pm to 12 am as primetime for all NA based servers. During this time, if the outmanned buffed is on longer than 15 minutes per map all points will start degrading to a maximum of 250 points (all maps combine), this means even if you hold everything you can only get 250 max. This could even be made to work 24/7 on servers that have larger WvW players, but for my purpose i propose the 12 hours version. ADDED: I just realized that since they are 3 servers it might be a problem. So instead of relying buff maybe make it so that points are worth 50% of their value from off peak.

1. Get rid of the point system and just make it related to the bonuses and randomly pick matches based players population.
   If you have any more suggestions or criticism, speak up. Also I just want to add, this whole “servers” are going to balance themselves out, at least in the top tier.

These seem like bad ideas to me.

1a. I’m Australian and have American friends. While guesting is nice, I’d very much like to be able to WvWvW with them.
b. Oceanic population isn’t enough to sustain more than a few servers. Not that much of a problem, ultimately, but it would be very easy for Anet to miss the sweet spot as far as no. of servers goes.
c. It doesn’t fix the problem. There’ll still be people who play the game during non-prime time; shift workers, people playing via proxy, etc.

2. This is a ‘hard’ fix. While it’s sound in its basic idea (“hey, these times are unbalanced, lets unbalance the scores to compensate”), it completely disregards how many people are actually playing. I’ve proffered a similar solution… Somewhere, I can’t remember where it was, but it’s not difficult to math out a formula which diminishes rewards based on current population of all three servers on the field.

3. Removing the MMR system would make it even more unfair and more unfun than it already is. As a top tier player, you’d be matched against servers which you’d absolutely steamroll- that’s fun for nobody involved.

silvermember.8941:

Get rid of the point system and just make it related to the bonuses and randomly pick matches based players population.

Been saying this since the head start (didn’t play in beta). Stop treating WvWvW as a mini-game/match to be “won” or “lost”. The only reason to have a reset after some period of time (1 week not, planned to be 2 weeks at some point in the future) is to prevent permanent dominance of one server. Other than that, it should be about the buffs/bonuses that a server can win/gain for itself by dominating in WvWvW (and they should be substantial enough that people really really want them, making them the goal/reason for WvWvW).

Sarrs.4831:

3. Removing the MMR system would make it even more unfair and more unfun than it already is. As a top tier player, you’d be matched against servers which you’d absolutely steamroll- that’s fun for nobody involved.

Nothing says that a point system cannot be used as an internal metric for matching servers. Just that there is no real reason for players to see it.

Sarrs.4831:

2. This is a ‘hard’ fix. While it’s sound in its basic idea (“hey, these times are unbalanced, lets unbalance the scores to compensate”), it completely disregards how many people are actually playing. I’ve proffered a similar solution… Somewhere, I can’t remember where it was, but it’s not difficult to math out a formula which diminishes rewards based on current population of all three servers on the field.

3. Removing the MMR system would make it even more unfair and more unfun than it already is. As a top tier player, you’d be matched against servers which you’d absolutely steamroll- that’s fun for nobody involved.

1. I did not expect people to like my first solution, also there is no evidence to support you claim that they are not at least 60k oceanic players, i guess I should have said pacific and south pacific.

2. My solution is going to punish people FAR less than the current system in place. As stated in my slightly overly dramatic OP, the currently system already punishes NA (which are the majority on the NA servers) during off peak. Also my solution does not in any shape of form disregard the amount of players playing in WvW, for all intensive purpose if you are not in WvW then it doesn’t matter how many ppl are playing. Anyways the basic idea is not to punish the main server population because they dont have a few pacific players. I think WvW should be a battle about skills not a battle of recruiting a lot of pacific players.

3. Removing the points will take off the pressure of winning, it will be a battle just for the fun of it. No harm no foul. It will still internally calculate points and match servers based on those points but as someone above me said, the players will not know. I think most of the fun in WvW is about taking and defending keeps not. Just to add, servers will still get bonuses for holding keeps but it will just be a progress bar.

You guys are all talking about the point system, which I used to do too – but you’re missing the point.

It isn’t about the points, it’s about the objectives themselves. Scaling the point system means the night capper is only 10k ahead instead of 50k ahead – BUT they still have fully upgraded and heavily sieged keeps in YOUR territory, massive stockpiles of supply, and long range siege pointed at your spawn zone.

Doesn’t matter what the point score is, you still have to find a way to get your first tower back.

Implementing the systems listed above, that supposedly are designed to “not punish NA players,” are instead punishing coordination, preparation, and understanding of the WvW system for servers that a) field 24/7 populations or b) have a strong Oceanic presence.

I think the only thing that has merit is hiding the score, but then again, someone will just make a spreadsheet to track everything.

The problem with the scoring system is the demoralization caused by it. You can’t keep track of the progress you make during your play time, so you have nothing to feel good about when it is lopsided even if you provide a very competitive fight during the time you play.

I would propose that the score remains as an indication of overall server strength but it is also split into different segments that represent the different segments of high activity that ArenaNet sees across all servers.

An example based on no data, just for illustration:

For a 24 hour day we split it into four segments of six hours that do not overlap and each has equal importance on the overall score. While one segment is active, each tick adds the current point totals to counters for each team for that active time segment and the overall point counter (the overall score is just a summation of points from each of the four segments).

At any point in time you can see what the current score for each segment is. This will allow servers to easily recognize where they are weakest and provide individual players with the ability to fight for pride in their most active time segment.

You could even go so far as to do a ramp down and up of total ppt as time segments end and begin to allow for the shift in populations across the world as people log off and come online. I’m not saying the ramping is necessary though, it would have to be based on the data.

In the end, the goal is to make the current system as fun for the most people possible while acknowledging the work and effort put in by large alliances that went for 24/7 coverage.

Sky.9347:

You guys are all talking about the point system, which I used to do too – but you’re missing the point.

It isn’t about the points, it’s about the objectives themselves. Scaling the point system means the night capper is only 10k ahead instead of 50k ahead – BUT they still have fully upgraded and heavily sieged keeps in YOUR territory, massive stockpiles of supply, and long range siege pointed at your spawn zone.

Doesn’t matter what the point score is, you still have to find a way to get your first tower back.

I think you are right that the snowballing of objective based advantages is a problem. You are wrong though, to downplay the scores. The scores make the game pointless after getting nightcapped once.

Roland Falantyr.3290:

Sky.9347:

You guys are all talking about the point system, which I used to do too – but you’re missing the point.

It isn’t about the points, it’s about the objectives themselves. Scaling the point system means the night capper is only 10k ahead instead of 50k ahead – BUT they still have fully upgraded and heavily sieged keeps in YOUR territory, massive stockpiles of supply, and long range siege pointed at your spawn zone.

Doesn’t matter what the point score is, you still have to find a way to get your first tower back.

I think you are right that the snowballing of objective based advantages is a problem. You are wrong though, to downplay the scores. The scores make the game pointless after getting nightcapped once.

That’s true, and as I’ve said before the score does matter because it generates (andkitten interest in the game.

But the score is really a symptom of the problem.

Kryptorchid.7620:

Implementing the systems listed above, that supposedly are designed to “not punish NA players,” are instead punishing coordination, preparation, and understanding of the WvW system for servers that a) field 24/7 populations or b) have a strong Oceanic presence.

I think the only thing that has merit is hiding the score, but then again, someone will just make a spreadsheet to track everything.

WvW is a battle between 3 servers. If one server is fighting against nobody it defeats the purpose of even having WvW be about 3 servers. In theory, at the end of the week the winner should have outplayed the other 2 servers, in most cases however the winner is decided because they manage to amass a lead when nobody is fighting against them.

It doesn’t take any coordination to fight against no enemy does it? Anyways, it doesn’t matter the scoring system needs to be fixed so it doesn’t reward fighting against nobody.

The other side of this argument is that without the 24/7 chance to come back HoD would have lost within the first weekend.
All it would take is a few hours of two servers ganging up like happened this weekend. SBI and ET essentially kept borders with each other while beating down HoD and put them back what 30k and 10k or so, respectively.
Now that its a complete 3 way and the scores are even in NA primetime there would be NO way to catch back up if not for nightcapping. Population balance is the ONLY way to fix these issues. The same has been true for ALL 24/7 pvp fights in any game. You can never mechanic your way out of this problem.

Sky.9347:

Roland Falantyr.3290:

Sky.9347:

You guys are all talking about the point system, which I used to do too – but you’re missing the point.

It isn’t about the points, it’s about the objectives themselves. Scaling the point system means the night capper is only 10k ahead instead of 50k ahead – BUT they still have fully upgraded and heavily sieged keeps in YOUR territory, massive stockpiles of supply, and long range siege pointed at your spawn zone.

Doesn’t matter what the point score is, you still have to find a way to get your first tower back.

I think you are right that the snowballing of objective based advantages is a problem. You are wrong though, to downplay the scores. The scores make the game pointless after getting nightcapped once.

That’s true, and as I’ve said before the score does matter because it generates (andkitten interest in the game.

But the score is really a symptom of the problem.

The scoring system, will keep players in the game and not just have them completely give up. Also your point about all those upgrades would be valid in a 1v1 server match. But when you are up against 2 other servers, it would be extremely difficult to defend all your keeps even if they are all super upgrade except possibly the Stone in EB but that should be nerfed a little more. And if they can’t take it back maybe they should lose.

My point really is to prevent servers from just downright giving and stay in the match.

displacedTitan.6897:

The other side of this argument is that without the 24/7 chance to come back HoD would have lost within the first weekend.
All it would take is a few hours of two servers ganging up like happened this weekend. SBI and ET essentially kept borders with each other while beating down HoD and put them back what 30k and 10k or so, respectively.
Now that its a complete 3 way and the scores are even in NA primetime there would be NO way to catch back up if not for nightcapping. Population balance is the ONLY way to fix these issues. The same has been true for ALL 24/7 pvp fights in any game. You can never mechanic your way out of this problem.

Let’s say for a moment that HoD didn’t have the massive night crew.

As SBI pulled further ahead, it would be my estimation that ET and HoD would begin double teaming them back.

Then ET would pull ahead, and SBI and HoD would beat them senseless.

As the design intended.

displacedTitan.6897:

The other side of this argument is that without the 24/7 chance to come back HoD would have lost within the first weekend.
All it would take is a few hours of two servers ganging up like happened this weekend. SBI and ET essentially kept borders with each other while beating down HoD and put them back what 30k and 10k or so, respectively.
Now that its a complete 3 way and the scores are even in NA primetime there would be NO way to catch back up if not for nightcapping. Population balance is the ONLY way to fix these issues. The same has been true for ALL 24/7 pvp fights in any game. You can never mechanic your way out of this problem.

Well, pre-launch alliances broke WvW by stacking thousands of active pvpers on 4 servers to sit in the queue behind eachother 24/7. Free transfer fair-weather pvpers then proceeded to seal the deal.

Population imbalance and matchmaking as a solution was killed by the hardcore community who just want to win (what u get for winning btw?) and stacked those four servers. Every other server is just a different degree of bottom feeder under the current “mechanic” so yes, I think ANET needs to step in if they are serious about WvW long-term…

silvermember.8941:

Sky.9347:

Roland Falantyr.3290:

Sky.9347:

You guys are all talking about the point system, which I used to do too – but you’re missing the point.

It isn’t about the points, it’s about the objectives themselves. Scaling the point system means the night capper is only 10k ahead instead of 50k ahead – BUT they still have fully upgraded and heavily sieged keeps in YOUR territory, massive stockpiles of supply, and long range siege pointed at your spawn zone.

Doesn’t matter what the point score is, you still have to find a way to get your first tower back.

I think you are right that the snowballing of objective based advantages is a problem. You are wrong though, to downplay the scores. The scores make the game pointless after getting nightcapped once.

That’s true, and as I’ve said before the score does matter because it generates (andkitten interest in the game.

But the score is really a symptom of the problem.

The scoring system, will keep players in the game and not just have them completely give up. Also your point about all those upgrades would be valid in a 1v1 server match. But when you are up against 2 other servers, it would be extremely difficult to defend all your keeps even if they are all super upgrade except possibly the Stone in EB but that should be nerfed a little more. And if they can’t take it back maybe they should lose.

My point really is to prevent servers from just downright giving and stay in the match.

The funny thing about the way the maps are designed is that when a server gets pushed back into their citadel, they have to leave through one of three choke points.

It’s actually easier to keep a server in their spawn (while fully upgraded) than it is to get them there in the first place.

Sky.9347:

displacedTitan.6897:

The other side of this argument is that without the 24/7 chance to come back HoD would have lost within the first weekend.
All it would take is a few hours of two servers ganging up like happened this weekend. SBI and ET essentially kept borders with each other while beating down HoD and put them back what 30k and 10k or so, respectively.
Now that its a complete 3 way and the scores are even in NA primetime there would be NO way to catch back up if not for nightcapping. Population balance is the ONLY way to fix these issues. The same has been true for ALL 24/7 pvp fights in any game. You can never mechanic your way out of this problem.

Let’s say for a moment that HoD didn’t have the massive night crew.

As SBI pulled further ahead, it would be my estimation that ET and HoD would begin double teaming them back.

Then ET would pull ahead, and SBI and HoD would beat them senseless.

As the design intended.

100% correct I agree completely. Which is why I said POPULATION is the only fix.

Q: In your scenario what would be the best way to get ahead as a server?

A: Find off-peak hours players and turn it into whats happening now.

For what it’s worth, my proposal would be to eliminate the designation of EU and NA servers, add a little bit of data to the select server screen (ping value), and let everyone reshuffle.

Combine 1 NA server + 1 EU server and you have 1 Henge of Denravi

Sky.9347:

For what it’s worth, my proposal would be to eliminate the designation of EU and NA servers, add a little bit of data to the select server screen (ping value), and let everyone reshuffle.

Combine 1 NA server + 1 EU server and you have 1 Henge of Denravi

I think you should work for ANet =). I had the same idea, they would just need to let guilds stay intact and keep influence. Although if you just straight up combine servers like that you might end up with some HUUUUUUGE queues at some hours and no one wants that.

displacedTitan.6897:

Sky.9347:

displacedTitan.6897:

The other side of this argument is that without the 24/7 chance to come back HoD would have lost within the first weekend.
All it would take is a few hours of two servers ganging up like happened this weekend. SBI and ET essentially kept borders with each other while beating down HoD and put them back what 30k and 10k or so, respectively.
Now that its a complete 3 way and the scores are even in NA primetime there would be NO way to catch back up if not for nightcapping. Population balance is the ONLY way to fix these issues. The same has been true for ALL 24/7 pvp fights in any game. You can never mechanic your way out of this problem.

Let’s say for a moment that HoD didn’t have the massive night crew.

As SBI pulled further ahead, it would be my estimation that ET and HoD would begin double teaming them back.

Then ET would pull ahead, and SBI and HoD would beat them senseless.

As the design intended.

100% correct I agree completely. Which is why I said POPULATION is the only fix.

Q: In your scenario what would be the best way to get ahead as a server?

A: Find off-peak hours players and turn it into whats happening now.

The idea that players on under-performing servers can/should be recruiting off-peak players/guilds is a fallacious claim perpetuated by folks benefitting from the status quo.

At this stage of the game, it is a completely impractical suggestion because it involves convincing folks who were willing to stack the odds in their favor to begin with by rolling on the mega-alliance servers that they should come start losing with the rest of us

Lower the player caps during off hours for WvW. This would even out the field a bit.

Lower point scores for uncontested wins. Or increase point scores for contested wins.

In the end it is the Dev’s responsiblilty to ensure a reasonably competitive experience in PvP. Allowing one server to dominate just because they have a huge population advantage during off hours is a failure of the Devs, not the players.

The devs are still holding out hope that this is a matchmaking issue.
If they move to two week matches without any changes WvW will become unplayable.

Roland Falantyr.3290:

The devs are still holding out hope that this is a matchmaking issue.
If they move to two week matches without any changes WvW will become unplayable.

No it will be great for the first 3 days.

Then the second weekend, we MIGHT have a couple days worth of a fun uphill battle, clawing out a place in the world for our server.

Then it’ll be over.

i have a fix.

its called an alarm clock.

insignia.3625:

i have a fix.

its called an alarm clock.

Insig,

We all know you are enjoying your population based wins. No need to share any further.

Thanks,

The rest of the player base

Ascii.9726:

Some system maybe that makes all points on the maps (Camps, Towers, Keeps & SM) worth a % less of there value.

What also might work would be making value change constantly depending on WvW population, for example

at 100% filled instance for all 3 servers (so 100% / 100% wvw population);

Camps – 10 Points
Towers – 20 Points
Keeps – 50 Points
Castle – 70 Points

This would ideally be primetime population and therefor points, during off-peak hours were say one server is 70% (the EU-night capping guilds) and others say 30% each (so 43% total / 100% wvw population);

Camps – 4 Points
Towers – 7 Points
Keeps – 22 Points
Castle – 30 Points
(43% of value rounded up/ down to nearest 1)

This kind of system would reduce the effectivess and mass lead given to higher EU populated US servers whilst still promoting night cappings for additional points (the more EU players you would get on, the more overall % wvw population so more points)

Thoughts?

Oh no, we are about to lose, SM. everyone log off to make our point loss lower.

Variable points based on participation create a system where it can be advantageous to not log in on purpose.

insignia.3625:

i have a fix.

its called an alarm clock.

I know you are trying to troll but do a better job at it. I have an alarm clock and it is to wake me up for work.

Here is the reality, you might be perfectly content with winning via oceanic players but eventually every server fighting against a server with a 24/7 presence is going to quit. Then what? There is no glory in winning if you are fighting against noone.

Casia.4281:

Ascii.9726:

Some system maybe that makes all points on the maps (Camps, Towers, Keeps & SM) worth a % less of there value.

What also might work would be making value change constantly depending on WvW population, for example

at 100% filled instance for all 3 servers (so 100% / 100% wvw population);

Camps – 10 Points
Towers – 20 Points
Keeps – 50 Points
Castle – 70 Points

This would ideally be primetime population and therefor points, during off-peak hours were say one server is 70% (the EU-night capping guilds) and others say 30% each (so 43% total / 100% wvw population);

Camps – 4 Points
Towers – 7 Points
Keeps – 22 Points
Castle – 30 Points
(43% of value rounded up/ down to nearest 1)

This kind of system would reduce the effectivess and mass lead given to higher EU populated US servers whilst still promoting night cappings for additional points (the more EU players you would get on, the more overall % wvw population so more points)

Thoughts?

Oh no, we are about to lose, SM. everyone log off to make our point loss lower.

Variable points based on participation create a system where it can be advantageous to not log in on purpose.

And they still get points so whats your point? And it will be during off peak hours so the strategy of logging of wont even be effective.

Gotta say that this is a pathetic. We went from a 26k point lead over HoD that we had to work our butts off for the past 72 hours to a 6k lead in about 8 hours. I agree that Anet needs to get rid of the different server regions to boost server populations during all hours, or it needs to separate the Aussies and Euros from the NA servers. I’m feeling pretty demoralized about WvW if I know that my server can even maintain a slight lead all day only to fall another 10k points behind at night. SBI vs ET vs HoD is fun during NA daytime, and nighttime just screws it all up.

The self-righteousness in this thread is overwhelming.

What if the situation was reversed? You dont see players outside of US calling
it “primetime”. There is no primetime in a 24/7 evolving battleground. Proposing
a so-called fix when there isnt a problem just shows how conceited or misguided
you can be.

Sky.9347:

displacedTitan.6897:

The other side of this argument is that without the 24/7 chance to come back HoD would have lost within the first weekend.
All it would take is a few hours of two servers ganging up like happened this weekend. SBI and ET essentially kept borders with each other while beating down HoD and put them back what 30k and 10k or so, respectively.
Now that its a complete 3 way and the scores are even in NA primetime there would be NO way to catch back up if not for nightcapping. Population balance is the ONLY way to fix these issues. The same has been true for ALL 24/7 pvp fights in any game. You can never mechanic your way out of this problem.

Let’s say for a moment that HoD didn’t have the massive night crew.

As SBI pulled further ahead, it would be my estimation that ET and HoD would begin double teaming them back.

Then ET would pull ahead, and SBI and HoD would beat them senseless.

As the design intended.

Agreed, the only real problem is that this mechanic requires enough time to pass to allow it to work. Right now pairings are too short in duration, even at 1 week, to give this time to work as intended. Which is really a big part of the problem, we are seeing (and reacting to) spikes that would, over time, level out quite a bit. The pairings just do not take place over long enough periods for this to ever happen.

insignia.3625:

The self-righteousness in this thread is overwhelming.

What if the situation was reversed? You dont see players outside of US calling
it “primetime”. There is no primetime in a 24/7 evolving battleground. Proposing
a so-called fix when there isnt a problem just shows how conceited or misguided
you can be.

There you go, you’re working into it… go ahead, you know you want to call us all racists.

There isn’t a problem for HoD or the one EU server on top. There is for everybody else. And this whole insinuation that anyone who claims there is a problem is either a xenophobe or racist is ridiculous. You guys do that every time this gets discussed, and it is disgusting.

to be honest, i just want to hear what ArenaNet thinks about it, or like i said somewhere else… Henge will be fighting empty servers even in NA Prime Time

Phaedryn.3698:

Sky.9347:

displacedTitan.6897:

The other side of this argument is that without the 24/7 chance to come back HoD would have lost within the first weekend.
All it would take is a few hours of two servers ganging up like happened this weekend. SBI and ET essentially kept borders with each other while beating down HoD and put them back what 30k and 10k or so, respectively.
Now that its a complete 3 way and the scores are even in NA primetime there would be NO way to catch back up if not for nightcapping. Population balance is the ONLY way to fix these issues. The same has been true for ALL 24/7 pvp fights in any game. You can never mechanic your way out of this problem.

Let’s say for a moment that HoD didn’t have the massive night crew.

As SBI pulled further ahead, it would be my estimation that ET and HoD would begin double teaming them back.

Then ET would pull ahead, and SBI and HoD would beat them senseless.

As the design intended.

Agreed, the only real problem is that this mechanic requires enough time to pass to allow it to work. Right now pairings are too short in duration, even at 1 week, to give this time to work as intended. Which is really a big part of the problem, we are seeing (and reacting to) spikes that would, over time, level out quite a bit. The pairings just do not take place over long enough periods for this to ever happen.

Well, these spikes occur once every day. I don’t see how they would level out, since it is the same server that gets pushed back during the day, and explodes with massive map domination every single night.

Aside from weekends, this pattern has been very predictable and recurring.

insignia.3625:

The self-righteousness in this thread is overwhelming.

What if the situation was reversed? You dont see players outside of US calling
it “primetime”. There is no primetime in a 24/7 evolving battleground. Proposing
a so-called fix when there isnt a problem just shows how conceited or misguided
you can be.

The last time I checked it was a NORTH AMERICAN server and it should be treated as such. You don’t have to agree with me on my method but you most accept that the current format is not working as intended because all it takes is 100 oceanic players to gummed up the progress made by 1000s of players during the peak times of the NA server and that is a problem.

Also If statements should be left for the programming. If statements, unfortunately in the real world no solve problems. lets see how that works IF I had my way all EU and Oceanic players would be restricted to their time zones, see how ridiculous IF statements sound?

Hahhaa…

SBQQ!

insignia.3625:

The self-righteousness in this thread is overwhelming.

What if the situation was reversed? You dont see players outside of US calling
it “primetime”. There is no primetime in a 24/7 evolving battleground. Proposing
a so-called fix when there isnt a problem just shows how conceited or misguided
you can be.

What is overwhelming is your refusal to discuss the issue at hand.
We don’t expect HoD or Titan Alliance members to acknowledge an issue. They win every match by having a bigger oceanic population than the other servers. If you think this should continue to be the sole determinant of victory then I don’t think you have the best interest of WvW at large at heart…Only continued winning.

Sky.9347:

Phaedryn.3698:

Sky.9347:

displacedTitan.6897:

The other side of this argument is that without the 24/7 chance to come back HoD would have lost within the first weekend.
All it would take is a few hours of two servers ganging up like happened this weekend. SBI and ET essentially kept borders with each other while beating down HoD and put them back what 30k and 10k or so, respectively.
Now that its a complete 3 way and the scores are even in NA primetime there would be NO way to catch back up if not for nightcapping. Population balance is the ONLY way to fix these issues. The same has been true for ALL 24/7 pvp fights in any game. You can never mechanic your way out of this problem.

Let’s say for a moment that HoD didn’t have the massive night crew.

As SBI pulled further ahead, it would be my estimation that ET and HoD would begin double teaming them back.

Then ET would pull ahead, and SBI and HoD would beat them senseless.

As the design intended.

Agreed, the only real problem is that this mechanic requires enough time to pass to allow it to work. Right now pairings are too short in duration, even at 1 week, to give this time to work as intended. Which is really a big part of the problem, we are seeing (and reacting to) spikes that would, over time, level out quite a bit. The pairings just do not take place over long enough periods for this to ever happen.

Well, these spikes occur once every day. I don’t see how they would level out, since it is the same server that gets pushed back during the day, and explodes with massive map domination every single night.

Aside from weekends, this pattern has been very predictable and recurring.

True, but without with a limited duration coupled with a win/lose mechanic (point scores) nobody would care. The average would be (more) acceptable. For me, it’s everyone worried about the score that is the issue. Frankly, I hate that there is a publicly viewable scoring system.

I apologise for the outburst but on a more rational note, TA has realised this very early when it was jsut 1 week in, everyone started transferring into HoD, NA and Oceanics alike.

At the start it was just TA oceanic guilds holding the frontline and it was rather balanced. (4 guilds assigned.)

its disgustingly full now and it really is of no fault of ours, but almost every thread that is discussing “night capping” will inevitably target TA and our “overwheming oceanic timezone numbers” which in reality, has no more than 30 players in each wvw ground at any given night.

OP might work 9-5 mon-fri but NA does not close down at 5pm, its 24/7 just live WvWvW is, get owned or do something about it that doesnt punish the entire playerbase for being at work or sleeping during “your” primetime

@insignia,

No, it isn’t anyone’s “fault”, it isn’t a bad strategy, and it isn’t “wrong”.

But it IS a problem for the future of W3 in GW2.

As someone who really enjoys this game, and REALLY enjoys W3 – I have a vested interest in standing up and speaking out about it.

A simple fix would be to go back to 24 hour matchups or shorten the matchups down to 2-3 days max opposed to 7 days. So oceanic players don’t have so much time to take the ball and run away with it so to speak.

Phaedryn.3698:

Sky.9347:

Phaedryn.3698:

Sky.9347:

displacedTitan.6897:

The other side of this argument is that without the 24/7 chance to come back HoD would have lost within the first weekend.
All it would take is a few hours of two servers ganging up like happened this weekend. SBI and ET essentially kept borders with each other while beating down HoD and put them back what 30k and 10k or so, respectively.
Now that its a complete 3 way and the scores are even in NA primetime there would be NO way to catch back up if not for nightcapping. Population balance is the ONLY way to fix these issues. The same has been true for ALL 24/7 pvp fights in any game. You can never mechanic your way out of this problem.

Let’s say for a moment that HoD didn’t have the massive night crew.

As SBI pulled further ahead, it would be my estimation that ET and HoD would begin double teaming them back.

Then ET would pull ahead, and SBI and HoD would beat them senseless.

As the design intended.

Agreed, the only real problem is that this mechanic requires enough time to pass to allow it to work. Right now pairings are too short in duration, even at 1 week, to give this time to work as intended. Which is really a big part of the problem, we are seeing (and reacting to) spikes that would, over time, level out quite a bit. The pairings just do not take place over long enough periods for this to ever happen.

Well, these spikes occur once every day. I don’t see how they would level out, since it is the same server that gets pushed back during the day, and explodes with massive map domination every single night.

Aside from weekends, this pattern has been very predictable and recurring.

True, but without with a limited duration coupled with a win/lose mechanic (point scores) nobody would care. The average would be (more) acceptable. For me, it’s everyone worried about the score that is the issue. Frankly, I hate that there is a publicly viewable scoring system.

I agree that the score total is perhaps a bad idea.

It could be cool, if the matches were balanced – there was an anti snowball mechanic – and some kind of reward for 1st AND 2nd place.

Without those things, it seems relatively useless for any positive contribution to W3.

So it’s not a problem for Aussies or Euros playing in NA servers, but it’s a problem for other servers who have NO recourse to counter the influx of Aussies on HoD. Seriously, we can’t just get NA players to just give up sleep and work, and we can’t force the Aussies to spread out to different servers. In its current form, WvW is unsustainable for this game except for the top server. So yes, Arenanet has to do something that will inevitably tick a lot of people off (and make other people happy), but something needs to be done, or as other people have said, HoD will be fighting empty servers. I mean, that’s what they’re already doing between 2-10 AM EST.

Davion.8754:

OP might work 9-5 mon-fri but NA does not close down at 5pm, its 24/7 just live WvWvW is, get owned or do something about it that doesnt punish the entire playerbase for being at work or sleeping during “your” primetime

The issue is the balance of impact. Take your emotion and desire to preserve the status quo out of the equation and look at the reality.

Right now, the activities of the majority of WvW players are being completely marginalized. Whats worse, the scoring impact resulting from this is so extreme that after 3 or 4 days the game is essentially over.

Again, if you are ok with this I deeply suspect you care little for the long-term health of this game.

Davion.8754:

OP might work 9-5 mon-fri but NA does not close down at 5pm, its 24/7 just live WvWvW is, get owned or do something about it that doesnt punish the entire playerbase for being at work or sleeping during “your” primetime

If you are not gonna post anything intelligent please dont post. I will humor you though, considering the current score between SBI vs HoD and ET, I can safely say that a lot of people are on a 9-5 schedule, so I don’t exactly see the point you are trying to make.

The reality is that WvW should be a battle between 3 servers not a battle between who has the most oceanic players on a NA server. We on SBI and ET can fight play equally against HoD during the peak time but what good does it do if everything you do gets rendered useless during off peak time?

If you are doing WvW purely to win, the current system works well for HoD. If you are trying to have a battle of minds then the current system does not work and eventually just like aion, it will come crashing down and burn, assuming it isn’t already showing symptoms of it.

yup pretty much to wake up and find that everything you have take is gone is very bad.

If we did move back to 24 hour matches, I’d also like the matches to start around noon in the server’s timezone to limit the influence of off hour players. That way their contributions would be tilted toward the end of a match rather than the beginning, and the beginning multiplies their contributions two or three fold by giving them more point ticks.

yeah back to 24 hours or make it 48 hours and start and end the matchups where it favors NA peak time on NA servers. Other problem is we have a lot of players on NA servers that dont speak english that help us how?

Davion.8754:

OP might work 9-5 mon-fri but NA does not close down at 5pm, its 24/7 just live WvWvW is, get owned or do something about it that doesnt punish the entire playerbase for being at work or sleeping during “your” primetime

How does it punish the entire playerbase? Currently the problem is that 3/4 or more of the playerbase is punished by the night capping.

Also if you’re asleep during the NA primetime your server isn’t going to lose everything because the majority of the NA population is online to defend. When the OP is asleep, he loses everything because most of the NA population is asleep.

I understand the oceanic players don’t want to be punished for something they can’t control. However, they also need to realize that NA players ARE currently being punished due to the oceanic presence. While a better scoring system that awards points based on difficulty of capping/defending is the best solution, another stop gap is to just make 3 oceanic servers and then limit point gain outside of each timezones respective prime times.