Guild Wars 2

From John’s OP.

This suggestion doesn’t really fall under scoring specifically, but would both affect and be affecting by score.

Add meta events that are directly triggered by a combination of score and population that can affect walls, supply, or anything meaningful to WvW success. GW2 has very heavily used random events in PvE to great success, why not use them to help balance WvW? These events are more likely to occur against a server with a more substantial lead as well as against a server with more players online. This would give the servers ahead something to do and give the servers behind an chance to recover and come back. All said and done, this would likely be a substantial amount of work and could be very difficult to implement and balance, but is also extremely versatile and rewarding to players of all sides that want fun and not just for easy wins. It would help alleviate population imbalance, snowballing, loot rewards, and definitely stagnation.

The downside is that this essentially implements more PvE into WvW, adding NPCs to even out the player difference, BUT there would still be player enemies whereas PvE does not, and this would be another ‘tool’ to consider, use, and leverage for the little guy. Some of these events could be friendly to one or more colors while some could be hostile to all but with a specific goal in mind.

Now, before you go clipping a part of my post to discount the idea, this is meant for balance and improvement. If green is 100k more points (or more) tin the lead, has double the players than the other two servers combined at the time, and has had SMC fully upgraded for three day straight, why couldn’t there be monsters attacking the castle? It would divert their attention and force them to split their forces more and give everyone a better chance to make a difference for their server. If implemented and balanced well, it has huge potential and could easily be changed and flavored for different seasons, holidays, or whatever the devs want!

Here are some examples off the top of my head:

A legendary giant attacks SMC, damaging walls with punches and stomps. It is indiscriminate, also attacking anything nearby, but primarily focusing on the walls. If it manages to cap SMC by itself, it turns neutral again.

Krait emerge from the depths of a borderland center (where they were before bloodlust!) and attack water gate of Bay or Garrison. Once they breach outer, they plunder the supply and leave.

The centaurs and skritt that currently attack the north camps of a borderland now rush in to steal supply, lowering the maximum supply the camp can hold until it is flipped and/or another event is completed to get it back!

The workers rebel! They refuse to continue an upgrade and instead take up arms against the guards! The guards will have difficulty fighting their own and will need help to get them back to work!

A largely undefended keep of a low population server is under siege! Ascalonian ghosts appear to defend their ancestral fort!

For Halloween, the Giant could be replaced by the Mad King himself! Add an aoe fear effect and minions! Add story and background to WvW! Put in whatever would be fun and productive! But whatever you do, don’t get too caught up in the little things, but keep the focus on balance!

Thank you John C. for reading our numerous and lengthy replies to this topic.

My experience on Ferguson’s Crossing is that we can have a decent amount of players in WvW when the matchups are competitive, but become almost non-existent when up against an overwhelmingly populated server compared to us. When in a competitive or favorable matchup, I see 4 to 5 times more people involved than when not. I’ve heard countless people, from various guildmates, to friends, to strangers say “Why do WvW this week,” “It’s pointless,” “We don’t have a chance to win, so why try.”

The points being, from my perspective, we’d get a lot more participation if the matches were more often even. Also, judging WvW population by current involvement is impossible, as with a change to the game mode, it’s like either more or less people will participate whether or not they like the change. Thus, simply merging servers to try and combine low involvement or populated servers together, like many others have said, will not solve the issue of WvW participation, and only cause strife of those forced to split or merge.

What we need is: A competitive atmosphere. Something that gives us a will to fight and a reason to try and win every week. A feeling of accomplishment, even if we fail to take or defend an objective, because we had intense combat, a good feeling of teamwork, and are ready to continue to the next battle. We need more incentive to play with and for each other and less fear of imbalance, trolling and cheating.

My preferred improvement idea is that of a cap, but not of a hard cap, like 50 per map. I believe the cap should be for the total number of players across all 4 maps (3 borderlands and eternal battlegrounds). Each borderland can have a maximum capacity as well (for lag purposes) like it does now. Further, I don’t mind being outnumbered, even all of the time, as long as it isn’t so overwhelming that we can’t even put up a decent resistance. A maximum ratio of 2:1 is probably a good start. It could be higher or lower or even change depending on total numbers.

This cap would allow zergs and players to move from one map to another to attack or defend an objective without having to re-enter a queue (assuming the map moving to isn’t full). The ratio queue would allow peak hours for some servers to still have some advantage in numbers over other servers. This queue shouldn’t affect the top tiers much, as their numbers should be rather similar already. I still wouldn’t recommend putting Blackgate against ET, at least not until their active populations get closer.

The biggest reason behind using the cap method, is to gently push players to lower tier servers to attempt to even out the population or suffer waiting in queues. Announce the desire to spread the population, then start it gently, and slowly lower the cap, increasing the queue, to give the incentive to move. At the same time, try to find positive enforcement to lure people to another server. No matter how this issue is approached, there will continue to be people kicking and screaming, disagreements, and of course flaming. All I have time for now… Still have more to say.

Some people love WvW. Some avoid it like the plague. Everyone has their own preference. I’m assuming that most of you looking at this forum like it more than hate it, cause otherwise you wouldn’t be here! I’ll start with my own answers:

1) What do you like best about WvW? What keeps making you come back for more? What keeps you interested or keeps it fun?

I love the chaotic nature of the fighting. The fact that you don’t know how many people you will be fighting with or against keeps things interesting and the fights different. The best moments are those that give a shot of adrenaline, like to see an enemy zerg while roaming alone, or when taken by surprise from an unseen foe, or those that give a feeling of ease, like when happening across allies while outnumbered, or taking an objective after a difficult fight. I don’t mind if I win or lose a fight or even a matchup, so long as I have the feeling that my efforts made a difference, no matter how small.

2) What do you like least about WvW? What makes you frustrated about it or makes you want to stop WvW in favor of something else like PvE, PvP or even EotM? (I consider EotM play separate).

My least favorite part of WvW is only when the numbers of the opposing forces are consistently much larger than your own (I’m talking 3 to 1 ratio totalled across all 4 zones or worse), that even with good tactics and player skill, little can be done to compete. Since it is less fun when the stakes are so high against you, I see many fellow players give up on WvW for the week, or entirely, or even change servers, making the odds even worse. Every effort has substantial resistance and is often short lived if achieved at all.

3) What tier are you in?

Bronze (Fergusen’s Crossing)

4) Have you switched servers for WvW? Why?

No. I switched servers almost 2 years ago, but that was to follow a guild and before I even tried WvW.

This is my first post on these forums, but recent events in WvW have made me reach out to find how others feel about WvW. I do NOT want this thread to turn into a discussion of what is broken or needs fixing, just personal opinions of WvW as it is right now. I’m sure this topic has come up before, but I didn’t see it recently, so… Here’s the questions:

1) What do you like best about WvW? What keeps making you come back for more? What keeps you interested or keeps it fun?

2) What do you like least about WvW? What makes you frustrated about it or makes you want to stop WvW in favor of something else like PvE, PvP or even EotM? (I consider EotM play separate).

3) What tier are you in?

4) Have you switched servers for WvW? Why?