I’m not going to lie, I enjoy this game more than any other MMORPG I’ve played before, and I enjoy WvWvW too despite its issues. Unfortunately, I have to admit that the more I think about it, the least I want to keep playing the game. One of the big, main draws for me was the PvP, specifically WvWvW, although I enjoy sPvP just as much.
But right now, the server match ups just don’t work. I’m going to use the current Maguuma vs Tarnished Coast vs Dragonbrand pairing that is going on right now to illustrate this point better.
During the day, for the past four days, the spread has been along the lines of Dragonbrand 40, Maguuma 30, Tarnished Coast 30. Obviously Dragonbrand is the superior server by a slight margin, and I applaud their coordination and superior skills. There is no denying that they are holding their own against the other two servers , and I’m not going to badmouth them for winning. They’re playing better, and that’s that.
During the night, however, this turns into Dragonbrand 100, Maguuma 0, Tarnished Coast 0. Dragonbrand has a full queue of European and night-only players, while the other two servers have at most 10-15 people awake and playing.
This… is not fun, not fair, and not a contest of skill.
WvWvW, in my opinion, should be a contest of skill. Of which server can coordinate better, of which server can hold their positions better, of which server can play better. Instead, it has turned into a war of which server can man the most people during off-peak hours to cap everything while everyone else sleeps.
If Maguuma and Tarnished Coast were paired in a WvW, they would be perfectly even. But Dragonbrand thrown into the mix, with their full queue of night players, just demolishes the match up.
And I know this is an issue in a lot of other pairings, and I don’t understand why people are against putting limits on how many people a server can have fielded based on which server has the least out. If Maguuma and Tarnished Coast can only field 15 people during the night per battlefield, why should Dragonbrand be allowed to field the full 100 or however many it is? This goes against the spirit of WvWvW, and it leads to spawn camping and the impossibility to make a come back.
This isn’t just damaging for the spirit of players either. This is actively damaging for the economy, because the servers that roll around with night-crew zergs receive significantly more karma, exp, gold and bonuses than the other servers, making it a sub-optimal idea to play on any other servers at all.
Truth be told, Arenanet needs to get their act together, and I can think of so many ways to do it that I don’t understand why it has not been done yet. Let’s go over them real fast:
1- Servers can only deploy X people where X is the smallest amount queued up by the three servers (i.e. you cannot outnumber your opponents, ever).
2- When outnumbered, the outnumbered party gets an actual outmanned buff that actually matters (i.e. stat increases). Sorry, but getting +karma, +magic find, +exp is pointless. Outmanned servers get spawn camped. They get zero use out of those bonuses.
3- Regionlocking WvWvW (i.e. you can’t recruit a bunch of European players to play on North American servers during low-activity hours).
4- Shutting down server transfers except to low population servers.
5- Merging servers.
6- A buff that becomes stronger the more objectives you lose, to the point where if a server owns 100% of the map, the other two servers will be substantially buffed and able to actually make a come back and stop being spawn camped.
7- Match servers up based on their active timezones instead of nearly randomly, so that if a server seems to be active 24/7, it is paired against other servers which are just as active.
And I’m sure there are tons and tons of other ideas out there. But come on. You can’t tell me WvWvW is fine as it is. I’m not saying “I’ll quit!”, and besides, I already bought the game, what would they care if I quit? But I am saying, Guild Wars 2’s endgame consists almost entirely of PvP, whether it’s sPvP or WvWvW. sPvP is nice and balanced, why can’t WvWvW also be?