Guild Wars 2

So I agree with this thread, the focus in sPvP is probably not worth it and there’s still time to make WvW monetized and maybe even an eSport, here’s my suggestion for that:

Step 1 – Make it so that a server’s population/time coverage doesn’t have a massive weight in the final score.

How?

Well, my favorite solution is dynamic point tally (through complicated, percentage based formulas, a server would score less if he outnumbers his enemies, because hitting doors shouldn’t be too rewarded)

Here are some threads with other ideas also: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Dynamic-Player-Cap-per-Map-Balancing-WvW and https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Night-Capping-and-YOU/

And as a bonus here’s a very truthful quote from one of them:

“Right now, WvWvW is a mode stuck between its casual nature in design and its hardcore treatment by players. It breaks up and recreates server communities, then proceeds to do it again. It’s contradictory state drives people away from the mode. It has no interesting winning condition.”

Step 2 – Open up free transfers to Medium servers (but exclude the ones in higher tiers, like Seafarer’s Rest)

It’s the only way populations will balance themselves, paid transfers won’t do it.

If you don’t do this, then probably the populations will remain unchanged (maybe the bigger guilds will move, hurting communities already established in certain servers) and the whole thing is pointless

It’d also help with the queues, the blobbing meta and the lag.

Important: population measurement can’t be done on the spot, otherwise people would just wait for the night (=less players) to transfer. Also, it would have to measure WvW population and not PvE population

Step 3 – With nightcapping fixed (well, eased is a better word) and populations more evenly distributed amongst servers, any server could finally face any other server. Right now, if a T1 server faced a T6 server, then it’d probably be a landslide with no interest both to the winner and the loser (well, it would be interesting for some sadistic farmers). Heck, even if a T1 server faced a T3 probably.

My idea is to have a league like in football or most sports.

Each week the matchups would change (according to the schedule sorted randomly in the beginning of the season) and servers would battle new faces every week. The season would have 2 rounds, so each server would have each matchup twice.

Servers would be awarded points for their performances: nothing linear like 3 points for 1st place, 2 points for 2nd place and 1 point for 3rd place, something more rewarding like 5-3-1, respectively. This would promote consistency in playing well, opposite to rewarding consistency in playing when the enemy is not playing, like we have now.

At the end of the season the winning server gets something besides the normal bragging rights… maybe some PvE bonuses, a title only usable in the following season or even a fun/morbidly difficult event for the players. Oh and free fireworks, that’s a must.

Important note: without nightcapping being eased and server populations spread, a league wouldn’t work. On the contrary, it would kill WvW faster.

If WvW becomes competitive, people will spend real money in it. If WvW stays as it is, people will not spend money in it and it will slowly die as only a few servers are competitive.

I know that a lot of people will throw in non-logical comments because they fear change to their daily farm (Grind Wars 2 #yolo), but I honestly do not care, I’m just here for the WvW.

So Ur gonna forced people who play together on a server to split up because they play at times when few others do? That’s really not fair. And its not even about night capping. Asanan example let take AG and BB on the euro side. BB has a very large afternoon and evening presence where s AG has a very large night and late night presence. This would mean that they would both have problems playing when they can play with people they enjoy playing with. To be honest the biggest problem with wvw is the separation of euro and NA server. If there was no split there would be better coverage around the clock for most servers

Step 1, is interesting, but the real problem is the play format in general.

Step 2 doesn’t work, as your population balance is based on a poor metric. The server pop indicator is not representative of the actual active WvW populations, which is less than 1% of the server population. There’s a lot missing from stats tracking that Anet doesn’t have to be able to balance WvW populations.

Right now the lack of competition is the only thing keeping PvP crawling.

Just to add something here but I did some figuring and found that the number of people that play wvw at least 2 hrs a day for one or more days a week is probably more like 5-7% of the population. The daily players are still 2% of the population or so.

Valik Shin.9027:

So Ur gonna forced people who play together on a server to split up because they play at times when few others do?

No one would be forced to leave a server. There are those who would do it to avoid queues and such, and there are those who wouldn’t do it, the servers would balance themselves out

Asanan example let take AG and BB on the euro side. BB has a very large afternoon and evening presence where s AG has a very large night and late night presence. This would mean that they would both have problems playing when they can play with people they enjoy playing with

Thus step 2, the free transfers that would make the populations spread. That way, no server would need to be “stacked” to reach a higher ranking. However, ppl can still play together if they want to, their points would still count (more – or less – according to their numbers and their enemies’ numbers)

There are 25 other servers in the european ladder, I’m sure they would enjoy a change of scenery as long as it was fair

To be honest the biggest problem with wvw is the separation of euro and NA server. If there was no split there would be better coverage around the clock for most servers

The cause for that separation is the different latency between EU and NA. There would be better coverage with no split, but Anet has no right to change that not (many people wouldn’t play in overseas servers). Besides, this is Guild Wars 2 not Coverage Wars 2

@Krakah: I know that the server population system is flawed, that’s why I said to exclude some servers.

For example, they allowed free transfers on Seafarer’s Rest, the #1 EU server. As one might easily predict, our server got overflowed with randoms that know little about WvW, are unwilling to cooperate and are just looking for their 15 minutes of fame. Now, guilds cannot play together due to the huge queues, some already left, the server is going apekitten and collapsing, what seems to be the rule of thumb in WvW

More servers would be excluded. The system would measure WvW population. Besides, the population meter would have to be based on the average population, not the current population (because most servers are Medium during the night)

I’ll add that to the suggestion thanks

I don’t get y latency is an issues for people. I play on euro server despite being in the USA. And I know aussies that have no latency issues despite not having any ocieanic placed servers

Valik Shin.9027:

I don’t get y latency is an issues for people. I play on euro server despite being in the USA. And I know aussies that have no latency issues despite not having any ocieanic placed servers

The only latency issues I have a problem with are the big fight skill lags that have taken off like crazy since the culling fix. There’s always been this problem, but it seems like it’s gotten 5x as bad since the culling change.

That said, back on topic: I see nothing wrong overall with WvW. Could be due to the great T2 matchup, but I have enjoyed the heck out of WvW. They’ve made a lot of updates and changes to keep things fresh, and I’m pretty happy with how things are…

People like to gripe and complain about zerging…but I have no problem zerging…or playing in small groups…or yak running…or playing defense…or sentrying. I find all aspects fun.

1. i am sorry , but what would be the peak
there is 4 hours diference betwen some eu countryes.
So when some players , consider is fine to play at 11:30 PM , for others is 03:30 AM, nightcap !!!
when some log at 16:00 , for others is 12 :00….
2. servers like blacktide, are in tier 8 with verry high population but 0 wwvvw population, how you make it competitive for them with your system ?

Chiolas.1326:

Besides, this is Guild Wars 2 not Coverage Wars 2

To bad there’s no Guild Wars either.

Rayya.2591:

1. i am sorry , but what would be the peak
there is 4 hours diference betwen some eu countryes.
So when some players , consider is fine to play at 11:30 PM , for others is 03:30 AM, nightcap !!!
when some log at 16:00 , for others is 12 :00….

Your point is…?

They would fight when they could and amass as many points as they could. This is not PvE, we cannot assume that the enemy is AI and must always be there to fight

Also, it would help if the outmanned buff was not useless as it is now

The objective is that the huge influence of “nightcap” is toned down. Right now, if a server “nightcaps” they are almost automatic winners, when maybe they are not that good

2. servers like blacktide, are in tier 8 with verry high population but 0 wwvvw population, how you make it competitive for them with your system ?

That’s why I took someone’s suggestion to measure WvW population only. With free transfers, some guilds or even solo players would transfer there, the server would slowly become competitive (maybe not the best but still…)

Why anyone would disagree with at least the core points presented is beyond me.

I don’t understand why they don’t just tally the score once a day.

Take your reading every hour like you do now, but average those together at server reset and provide points accordingly. Many of the servers out there are awful with anything even remotely close to even numbers. They manage to win every week because of the population disparity at night and their ability to contest every point on the map for 6 hours at night while mainting 1/4th of it during the day. This behavior wouldn’t have such a large impact if the scores were averaged and perhaps the highest and lowest score for the day were thrown out.

Now as for the rest and the desire to make WvW an eSport? Not possible. I’d rather they just improve the maps so some level of strategy and tatics could be employed to counteract all the zerg on zerg action.

If the world map was tiered (see below) with real bottle necks, objectives, and a real need to defend, WvW wouldn’t be nearly as bad as it is right now. Add onto the terrible map design the awful class balance and lack of any real depth to the classes (nothing but DPS being a goal for every class? That’s not how you make a fun and engaging group pvp system!) and there’s no wonder WvW is the laughing stock it is right now.

Tiered PvP System:
Imagine if the map was Y shaped. Each part of the Y is a lane belonging to one server. At the tip of each lane is your spawn point. At the center is effectively a giant castle like SM. Between the 2 is a cluster of towers and a keep. So effectively your lane would look like this:

Spawn > tower + tower + tower > keep > tower + tower + tower > castle

The only way to capture the castle would be to have everything in your lane. If you have the castle, but don’t have everything in your lane, the walls and doors take 20% more damage per structure lost. The same is true for all structures. Say you don’t have the tower closest to your spawn. Every other tower and keep you own would now take 20% more damage from siege. And for the love of god, remove the ability for one keep/tower to siege the next keep/tower from inside the walls.

A map designed like the above alone would resolve much of the zerg issues because players couldn’t just run around as a giant clump and accomplish anything. They’d never be able to take a point because they wouldn’t have the structures in their lane. They wouldn’t be able to maintain a point because they don’t have the structures in their lanes.

Next thing you do is make it so siege equipment has no master. If you don’t destroy your siege when you take down an enemy structure, the enemy will just use it to get right back in.

Then if you remove the ability for players to attack gates so only siege items could hurt them you could introduce actual siege weapons (sledge hammers, burning arrows, crowbars, etc) that palyers would put on in exchange of their normal weapons. These weapons would do 10% of your normal damage to players but would do 50% of their normal damage to gates and 25% of their normal damage to walls.

While this is more damage players are currently doing with their melee weapons, you at least keep them on the defensive because if they get attacked by a counter-force while still wielding their siege weapons they’ll be of no use against the attackers. This way players are encouraged to use siege equipment more instead of just zerging in piles of 100 and auto attacking reinforced walls while balled up getting blast heals.

Then finally, when all of this is done, you can consider adding real defenders to keeps. Allow commanders to send out waves of 20 NPC guards to help push enemies back. Train elite guards to help push people off gates. Hire pilots to strafe the battle field. etc etc

I might have missed something but I don’t see an actual proposition to “fix” night capping. How would we “fix” or “ease” nightcapping? Also, I think night capping is perfectly fine since it gives players a better chance to succeed without needing to run with a large group. I might be a little biased though since I fight for Sorrow’s Furnace, which has a large nocturnal population.

Also, giving more points to servers with less population would generate a lot of player hate. Elitist WvW players would be trying to threaten or bribe all of the PvE/PvP players off of their servers, and servers would be able to sabotage their opponents by simply sending accounts to their servers.

the problem in w3 map is that full upgrades means really NOTHING ….

you spend some gold and some hours to loose it in under of five minutes when you are gone for sleep :p

Reborn.2934:

the problem in w3 map is that full upgrades means really NOTHING ….

you spend some gold and some hours to loose it in under of five minutes when you are gone for sleep :p

Not realistic in this game, but Shadowbane solved this problem by introducing siege stones. An attacker would drop a siege stone and the defenders had 6 hours to respond to an attack and they had to choose a time within a 12 hour window from when the stone was dropped. So if you dropped a stone at 6am, the defenders could choose any time between 6am and 6pm to choose when the castle was vulnerable to attack.

Now I think just giving points once a day based off the average of the 24 hourly tallies will solve a lot of the night time raiding issues because these servers often can’t get their act together during the day. But a scenario like the above where a tower can be taken and then retaken within a specified window, but if you don’t take it within that window, it can’t be retaken again until another window. This way keeps could effectively be on lockdown for the night crew in some fashion and they couldn’t retake it.

Say you lose a keep at midnight, but don’t take it back before 3 am because people actually defended it for a change. Now it’s on lockdown and immune to damage for 6 hours so it’s not vulnerable for attack again until 9am.

It’s a difficult thing to fix imo.

EnemyCrusher.7324:

I might have missed something but I don’t see an actual proposition to “fix” night capping. How would we “fix” or “ease” nightcapping?

Step 1. I mentioned several solutions like dynamic point system, dynamic map caps or the outmanned buff not being useless (that’s an obvious one), so I decidd not to waste time with that again

Also, I think night capping is perfectly fine since it gives players a better chance to succeed without needing to run with a large group. I might be a little biased though since I fight for Sorrow’s Furnace, which has a large nocturnal population.

So the majority of the players (thus the term “primetime”) gets screwed because they have little impact on the score because they fight against more enemies, just because they can’t play on other times (because of jobs, work, school, wtv)… That is pretty much a perfect example of “not fair”, except it’s not an example but reality

Maybe Anet wants to make us choose: either we have jobs or we play a videogame, well I can guarantee that is not going to end well for Anet

Also, giving more points to servers with less population would generate a lot of player hate. Elitist WvW players would be trying to threaten or bribe all of the PvE/PvP players off of their servers, and servers would be able to sabotage their opponents by simply sending accounts to their servers.

In the unlikely event that a server did that, it would be unable to fight on all 4 battlegrounds effectively, so it would actually lose points overall. Assuming of course that the formula is balanced, so it should be tested first one some matchups

EDIT:

Making an average of the daily point ticks would indeed be better than what we have now, but it would still heavily punish a server whose players can’t play during the night and morning

ANet said “WvW will never be balanced” in the past. It’s just the way it is.
No valuing here, just sayin.

Iruwen.3164:

ANet said “WvW will never be balanced” in the past. It’s just the way it is.
No valuing here, just sayin.

The past can be ignored, WvW imbalance shouldn’t

From here – JonathanSharp: “We’re starting to split PvE/WvW in the upcoming patch.”

Change is coming…

my main problem is the PvE reward for doing PvP, kitten PvE in the BOTTOM HOLE!!!!!

Bumped because I can

Why would you dig up a stupid thread?

Look at the ignorant things those people said above, who think the world is only their country/neighbourhood and nothing else exists. “how do we fix night capping????” “losing keeps while you sleep”. My god, there’s more people in this world than you, living in different time zones.