Designing a serverless WvW system is a relatively simple matter.
Begin by creating three factions. The potential maximum population size of each faction is defined in relation to that of the others (impossible with a server-based system), so that faction populations will always “rubberband” within a certain range of each other. Joining/leaving a faction is handled on a player by player basis, but you can add some sort of guild-based mechanism if you wish that allows guilds to devote themselves to one particular faction. Inactive accounts lose faction membership after a suitable period of time to keep population numbers (relatively) updated.
Next, create a dynamic map system where new maps open up if the current ones are sufficiently full (and close and/or stops accumulating score if sufficiently empty). You can think of this as having a system of “map tiers” instead of server tiers, the main difference being that everything is open to you. That is, there’s just a long list of maps and you can join whichever one you like. If one faction has sufficient players to cause the creation of a new map, but at least one other factions doesn’t, the system stops creating new maps and excess players from the overpopulated faction(s) must join an existing map, filling them up completely and thus eventually generating queues. One important point is that different maps don’t necessarily need to have the same population limit, even if it’s copies of the same map. The system can generate copies of maps with low population limits for those who like more open space, and high limits for those who prefer large zerg fights, so that different folks can have different strokes. Also, there’s no player randomization (i.e. EotM/megaserver style tech). You and you alone dictate where, when, how, and with whom you play.
And of course over time you could get to the advanced stuff, like adding an overland map depicting the territories factions are fighting for, letting players of each faction hold a popular vote between battles to decide which territory to attack, and creating further impediments to population/guild imbalance by using the system to generate maps slanted toward a given faction if it’s losing too much territory (similar to what you saw in alliance battles in GW1).
The project itself is (still) entirely doable. It’s just that a.net chose to do something else.
It’s probably better if they don’t have one at all. The CDI they intended to launch was on tournaments specifically, so unless you want to see people venting a bunch of fiery opinions about season 2, there’s really no point. Just about every single thread that has attempted a discussion of the problems with the current tournament structure has ended up turning into matchup threads.
On a different note, I completely agree that if you don’t like the direction of the game, the right move is to stop buying gems. I for one have no faith whatsoever that an appropriate percentage of the money spent on this game goes toward improving WvW, and as such stopped buying gems some time ago.
Given the tendency of any post on tournaments to devolve into a matchup discussion, I can’t say I blame them for not having a tournament CDI after all. I also don’t really see what the point would be.
Sure, I’ll take some untested maps. Not in WvW proper mind you, but I’ll take them all the same. This is precisely the reason why good gaming companies have test realms for this sort of thing. It alleviates the burden on the developer to do all of their own testing and gives players access to new content at the same time. They did exactly that with EotM before they introduced it, and they should pursue that method even further.
There is literally no reason whatsoever to be conservative here.
Best guess? They figured out that any thread about tournaments will inevitably reduce to a matchup thread anyway and decided not to have a CDI after all.
I am sure anet is well aware of the problems, whither they will actually do anything or just ignore it to death is another problem all together. I don’t expect that we will see any Red on this thread. And I didn’t actually expect a large amount of people to post on it either. I know the RvBvG pops up way to often. My only hope in making this was that people would start to think about more then "We lost, we were steamrolled, if we were in an alliance this wouldn’t’ have happened. "
There’s no doubt people will still get steamrolled regardless of whether we have alliances or not. What I can promise you, however, is that with alliances, whether you win or lose an engagement will be a more accurate reflection of skill than it is today. Alliances (or factions, or colors, or whatever you wanna call them) are really just an exercise in mitigating institutional bias. And in terms of system design, they do an excellent job. The answer to any objection to the actual system itself will just about always fall into one of two categories, namely 1) alliances enable mechanics that make them perform just as well or better than servers or 2) another mechanic will address that objection for us. I’m kind of curious as to why you seem to think the system itself wouldn’t perform properly, as it’s not immediately apparent from any of your posts, but you’re right that we’ve covered more than enough territory for now, so we’ll save that for some other time.
On the other hand, non-system related objections are all over these forums – probably because the same old threads advocating EotM/megaserver technology (i.e. randomized, overflow-based AvA) keep popping up all the time, and so we keep going in circles and beating the same dead horse. But regardless of content, that type of argument is subjective and based almost purely on personal opinions, and I agree that this makes it exceedingly difficult to make any more headway than we already have. Here, simply agreeing to disagree is precisely the right move.
So, with that said, I thank you for playing ball.
my entire post was not directed at you.
Heh, no worries. Whenever I see the same talking points persisting despite already having addressed them, I usually mention why I don’t reply to those parts of a post if I feel they’re important enough. It’s mostly just intended as a way to move the debate forward, since it does us no good to keep going in circles on the same talking points if we’ve reached an impasse.
I have done nothing but stick to the topic that I feel that RvBvG is not good for WvW. So here I am just confused.
That particular point was one I raised because your post implied that the scale of the fights you get are a function of the size of the population units you work with. They aren’t. Larger population units do not result in larger battles for all, it comes down to how you design the system.
Funny this just sounds like a lot of fancy words for the one big one “overflows.”
The crucial difference between overflows and simply having X maps to play on is, as we’ve already been over, the power of choice. The strength of a properly designed AvA system is precisely that the overflow element is removed from the system. You decide where you play, the system doesn’t – same as now.
I won’t debate this as a popularity contest. I simply stated a fact. I believe the vast majority of the WvW population agrees with me. I have yet to see more then the three people I expected to object to what I had to say in my post here, based on previous discussions. However if the majority of the population here on these forms were to join in this discussion on your side I would concede the point.
Well, I think we’ve probably had too many threads dealing with this issue to expect people, regardless of which side of the fence they’re on, to come rushing in. I’m sure you’ve noticed that new RvGvB threads keep popping up regularly, and most of them haven’t even moved beyond the overflow concept yet. I very much share your frustration here, overflow systems receive far too much attention and it is incredibly difficult to move the debate forward – a point that I think even our conversation reflects to a certain extent. In any case, that tendency tells you something about the perception people have of alliance systems. Most people don’t have full information, or even close to it, and no informed decision is possible either way. I agree with DeadlySynz in that it seems to me that most people just don’t realize that proper AvA systems are not overflows. Like it or not, that’s the level of the debate right now. But all that notwithstanding, these forums are themselves the minority to begin with. Most players, according to a.net, simply don’t post here.
Lastly, I’ll take a few moments to clarify my own position on alliances since your post brought it up. As of now, I’m fairly indifferent – although a.net’s tendency to arrange WvW tournaments despite the problems we have does bother me, but that’s another topic entirely. Overall I’m very happy with the server I’m on, and with each passing day the alliance issue becomes less relevant anyway due to the natural attrition of the game. As people move on to other things, populations dwindle – and the end result will, oddly enough, be much like an alliance system. I think eventually we’ll see most of the population concentrated on the servers at the top, while the rest will have but a few WvW players left. It’s a process that is already fairly well underway, and the most likely outcome by far is that a.net will simply let this process play itself out.
Server pride
We’ve covered that ground already, so I won’t address this part of your post further.
I prefer the larger population and the fights that come along with it. However, there are many many players who have stated that they do not prefer this.
Okay, I already commented on this issue once, and gave you the whole speech on strawmen, so I’ll be a little less courteous with you this time in order to get the point across.
The claim that alliance systems promote large scale combat (i.e. blobbing) at the expense of small scale combat is entirely a strawman of your own making. The argument has no validity whatsoever. In fact, alliance systems outperform server systems in this regard precisely because they have larger populations to draw upon, which enables them to offer a palette of different experiences to the player base while still ensuring that there are enough people to make each of those experiences meaningful (that is, you will incur fewer, if any, dead maps).
I’ll elaborate for good measure. Assuming alliances were implemented, that means populations are no longer “attached” to specific maps as they are under a server system (where you can only join the same four maps). Instead, what would happen is that you would have one global map pool, consisting of many maps, and everyone would have access to all maps. This is a tremendous benefit, for one specific reason:
You can customize the map pool in any way you wish.
So you’re not happy that there are no maps left for those who prefer smaller fights? Then make some! You can easily insert a copy of the maps into the map pool that have a lower population limit – say, 30 per side? 40? Whatever floats your boat, you can have it. Of course, the more maps you introduce, the larger populations you will need to fill them – which is precisely why alliance systems are better performers when it comes to catering to different kinds of players. They have the population to fill many maps. If you were to offer up an array of different maps to cater to different preferences on a server system, you wouldn’t have the necessary population to fill all (or even a few) of them.
An AvA system is bound by no restrictions. It is, for almost all intents and purposes, the God of Maps. There can be as many or as few maps in the map pool as you wish, they can have whatever population limits imposed on them that you care to implement, and those limits can vary from map to map any way you like. You are bound by nothing but your imagination. AvA gives you the power to customize the map pool to fit the needs, desires, and overall size of your player base at any given time. And this is all working with the elements that already exist in the current infrastructure (so much for all the extra work for a.net). We haven’t even begun talking about introducing new elements (i.e. new maps with other mechanics).
I do hold that my view is correct and seems the more popular view regarding WvW at this time.
Probably. It is the easiest thing in the world to acquire upvotes on forums like this one because people are predisposed to voting with their hearts instead of their heads. Write a post about the endangerment of player communities, insert some overblown bullet-to-the-head rhetoric, and you’ve got yourself a “thumbs up” post. It is an age-old recipe that generations of politicians have followed to a tee. Take [insert issue here], make people afraid of it, then tell them who’s to blame for it. Mind you I’m fine with people voicing their opinion, they have every right to do so. But when the rhetoric becomes too bloated, you’re in danger of going from arguing your case into fearmongering.
You will win no popularity contests if you argue for balance. You will just have to settle for being right on the merits.
I think we’ve been over the whole randomization thing enough that I don’t need to address those parts of your post further, so I’ll just offer a few comments on some of the other points you raised.
As from what I have seen when it comes to Alliance ideas, I don’t see that we get enough from them to benefit from the amount of work Anet would have to put into making the change.
Most of the work required is a matter of bathing the resulting three alliances in a sufficient amount of lore so that players will accept them (i.e. a storytelling job). There is some work related to system itself as well, but not as much as you would expect.
By making someone who might wish to play on a low pop server or moved there due to a older computer now being forced into this kind of an alliance setting.
Alliance systems can offer as wide a variety of experiences as you care to implement, it is only a matter of applying suitable population caps to the maps. I’m well aware that different players have different preferences. I’m also aware that an alliance system has no problem accommodating those preferences.
By pointing out which things it would have no effect on, hence any statement where “alliances don’t address [insert problem here]” has to be made because at the end of the day, if the new system you want of alliances doesn’t address enough of the problems we have, or create more problems, hence ruining the game experience of the players then they are not worth it.
Constructive criticism is fine. I don’t know if this needs to be made clear, but my previous statement was not meant as an attempt to immunize myself from criticism. Rather, I simply urge that people who would debate the issue apply a healthy dose of interpretive grace, as many of the “problems” with alliance systems that people continually bring up tend to be the result of incorrect assumptions. Hence why I spent a great deal of time specifying precisely what alliances are meant for and which problems they can and cannot solve, because it saves us all the trouble of having to tip-toe around unnecessary strawmen.
I would never advocate the destruction of any server, from the largest to the smallest.
I agree with the general sentiment to a certain extent. I will say, though, that the picture many people tend to paint of alliance systems as the “destroyer of communities” is greatly exaggerated. As we already talked about, players will still play with the same guildies and friends as they always have (i.e. well-established groups will simply join the same alliance), and they will be in full control of where, when, and how they play, as they are now. The real issue is whether people are willing to replace [insert server name here] with [insert alliance name here]. I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for you as far as that goes, because it’s an emotional argument, and there is no reliable way to quantify those. My interest as far as this discussion goes is primarily in how the system would function. Once we move beyond discussing the actual merits of the system itself, my interest in the discussion wanes. Not because I feel other arguments are invalid, but because they’re difficult to say anything reliable about.
I will say that I feel fairly confident that larger population units will outperform smaller ones hands down, and by a considerable margin. I think that if you intend to argue against the actual merits of larger populations, you will lose the debate, and you will lose it badly. And I’m happy to walk you through various problems that are related to the implementation and discuss which mechanics make for good solutions. Those are (relatively) objective issues that I expect we can reach some form of consensus on. In other words, we can establish with some certainty what the tradeoff between different systems is. However, whether people are willing to accept the tradeoff is a matter of personal opinion.
I don’t think you need to be concerned with a.net going back on their word though. Like I said, the primary argument being mounted against alliances is not one against its merits, but rather an emotional one. And much like good politicians, good gaming companies don’t reverse themselves on emotionally loaded issues because they know they’ll burn a LOT of bridges if they do. The backlash would be something fierce.
Perhaps, but I don’t see alot of options that present a good way of doing it that actually fixes anything. Either we have a massive change like overflows which destroys things, or we go with something else like what was presented here. When I read through it, I didn’t actually see that anything would change to help fix problems people are asking for.
We’ll walk through this from the beginning then.
I’ve written this elsewhere already, but the difference between a system that eliminates population imbalances and one that merely mitigates them is choice. In other words, the ideal solution in this case, the “magic bullet” as it were, would be true randomization. With that you could pretty much eliminate population imbalances (both in absolute terms and across time zones) with a single mechanism. Randomize the players so that each time a player joins that player is added to the team where (s)he is needed to even out the numbers. And just to hedge your bets you could redistribute players (i.e. autobalancing), even across multiple map instances, if/when imbalances still occur.
However, since we seem to agree that randomization has unacceptable drawbacks (i.e. costs to player communities), we are left with no choice but to forego the mechanic that would otherwise be ideal for the job. The dilemma is not unlike that which societies face when dealing with security. You can impose on people’s freedoms to such a degree that you can virtually eliminate security concerns, but no one wants to live in an Orwellian police state. The perfect solution carries costs that are simply too high. So in recognition of the fact that we cannot eliminate the problem entirely, we are then left with the task of finding suitable ways to mitigate it. That in turn means tackling the problem by introducing a layer of safeguards that, while imperfect in and of themselves, mitigate the problem to a satisfactory degree when taken as a whole. It is, in fact, precisely how security systems work: redundancy upon redundancy upon redundancy.
Moving back to game design, this is why larger population units (alliances) are better than smaller ones (servers) – because they enable more redundancies. They permit the (rough) balancing of total populations against one another, they are highly resilient to population fluctuations, and they impose no restrictions on the map pool. By contrast, a multitude of smaller population units offers no mechanism for balancing populations (no, server population caps are not a viable control mechanism), are much more volatile, and restrict use of the map pool to specific player segments.
One last point. Before you respond with “alliances don’t address [insert problem here]”, do remember that all of our redundancies are inherently imperfect. Alliances are not meant to compensate for every conceivable issue. Larger population units enable some of the redundancies needed to produce a more balanced PUvPU format (chief among which is a way to balance populations), but they are not the magic bullet. Some problems, like time zones, will likely be addressed by other mechanics such as time slices. Other problems will be addressed by the map pool, and still others will be addressed by the PPT system. It’s very easy to pick apart any given redundancy by pointing out its imperfections, but that’s precisely the reason why we’re building a system with layers of multiple redundancies. What one redundancy cannot address, another will. Returning to the security analogy for a moment, asking why alliances can’t do this or that or the other is not unlike asking why the police can’t put out the fire in your house. The answer is it’s a job for the fire department.
You have to appreciate the big picture.
Essentially a variant of the “time slices” suggestion that has been put forward multiple times before. I fully agree that some version of this is hands down inevitable if you want to deal with time zone imbalances, and it’s something a.net should seriously look into.
These objections have been brought up more than a few times already, but I’ll go over the arguments with you point by point for good measure. We can certainly agree that “overflow” technology is bad for WvW. However, to extrapolate from that that all forms of AvA are bad is overreaching.
Anyway, I’ll keep this as brief as I can.
1. It all boils down to numbers. It is impossible to fit all the WvW players onto four current maps. That is why we had serves to start with.
Not exactly. The server infrastructure isn’t related to the number of maps in the map pool. The fact that we can’t squeeze all of the population into four maps isn’t the reason why we have servers, rather it’s the reason why we have more than four maps (as any functional AvA system would obviously have as well).
2. Sever Pride
The term “server pride” is an oxymoron. Community pride is a more accurate description, and communities need not necessarily be based around servers. If we had alliances, it would be alliance pride instead.
You would be right to point out that, given that we would be implementing alliances after the fact, any AvA infrastructure would need the ability to keep existing communities intact to the extent that they themselves desire, but that’s easily done by letting them join the same alliance (cap permitting).
3. EoTM
Agreed, EotM/megaserver technology won’t work for WvW. It will make it impossible to create and/or maintain communities. However, this is solely due to the RNG element of those designs. Remove the RNG and you end up with a system where, like now, the player is put in the driver’s seat. Of course I agree wholeheartedly that players should be allowed to make their own decisions about where they play, whom they play with, and which alliance (or server, as is the case now) they represent. That doesn’t make AvA systems impossible or even impractical, it simply means that RNG is bad for communities – and I’d wager the communities are the primary motivation for a lot of players out there, at least I know that’s true for myself.
My only beef with the PPT system is that it doesn’t reflect the amount of resources invested in structures and which side you capture structures from. Other than that it actually isn’t too bad.
For the record I think a WvW format based solely around fights would be a bit dull, but putting aside my personal opinion for a moment, the real problem here is populations. The much maligned PPT system is merely a symptom of that problem. It doesn’t matter which criteria you set for winning in WvW, a server with more players will always accomplish [insert goal here] more effectively than one with fewer players. Even if points in WvW were solely earned by winning fights, the server with the most players would almost certainly have the best kills/death ratio on average. Winning is primarily a function of numbers, not skill, and replacing “capture the most structures” with “kill the most players” doesn’t really change that.
Unless of course you’re talking about implementing a handicap system. But that’s a tough one to pull off if you want it to work properly, and even if successful that still doesn’t make the fights themselves any more balanced.
You have to forget about the megaserver/EotM models if you want to have a chance of going through with this. RNG-based models just don’t provide sufficient basis for establishing and maintaining communities and tend to dilute the “us vs them” concept that WvW, like any PvP format, is based on.
The only realistic chance you have at making a three alliance model work is by putting players in the driver’s seat, which means letting them make their own decisions about whom they play with, where they play, and which alliance they represent. It’s a lot easier anyway, and also has the benefit of being able to largely preserve existing communities to the extent that they themselves choose (i.e. they can join the same alliance if they want). Of course you’ll probably need a soft cap on populations, so there’s a limit to the flexibility, but it’s better than the alternative by far.
But I’ll agree that the term server pride is largely an oxymoron. Community pride would be a far more accurate description, and communities need not be server-based. If we had alliances, it would be alliance pride instead. What we’re talking about is essentially giving players new banners to rally behind. Whom you rally with should remain firmly your own choice – the model doesn’t need to dictate that to work anyway, so there’s simply no need to inconvenience players in that regard.
My guess is, though, that the devs will never move on this. Despite the obvious benefits, I’d wager they’re simply not willing to spend the resources and/or risk the inevitable backlash from the server pride crowd, justified or not. Rather, I think you’re much more likely to see the current model simply run its course – which, due to natural attrition, will eventually result in much the same thing anyway (i.e. population concentrated on three servers at the top, with the rest either dead or dying).
At the end of the day it just won’t matter much which system is used for seasons. The population imbalances between servers pretty much guarantee that no reasonable compromise can be found. Some systems will work slightly better than others, but none can assure meaningful matchups for all (or even most) servers. That will only happen when populations are addressed. At that point, designing a workable system for tournaments becomes a relatively easy task.
I don’t know why people keep posting threads like this. I’m sure most people will agree that when it comes to populations the state of WvW is less than optimal. It’s a point that has been made countless times already, and the reasons for it are well known. The format inherently rewards stacking, and players will invariably follow the path of least resistance.
Where the going gets tough is coming up with acceptable solutions. Not because none of the solutions suggested thus far have been viable, but because they are often met with significant degrees of disapproval. Everyone agrees about the nature of the problem, but there isn’t a hint of consensus when it comes down to actually doing something about it. Given that, I can’t say I’m surprised by a.net’s unwillingness to open this particular can of worms, despite the fact that we’ve had two CDI threads so far where people repeatedly attempted to get to grips with it. Straegen already nailed this thread anyway, and there’s not much more to add, so I’ll just quote him and be done with it:
Ultimately game designers need to leave the server design system completely if they want a better PvP, RvR, WvW system.
And that’s the pill the WvW community has consistently proven unwilling to swallow.
@Drarnor:
So far as I can tell, the only new point you raised that I haven’t addressed yet is that of risk/reward, so I suppose I’ll go over that quickly. This is something I would consider to be a purely theoretical concern, the reason being that necros already have boatloads of AoE skills that reward engaging multiple opponents. The reward is pretty obvious too, you simply get to kill more. Generally the offensive abilities provide enough incentive for you to behave however it is appropriate for your class/build to behave, while defensive abilities are typically just that – defensive. The vampiric traits are of course an exception to that rule, but they’re an exception that really doesn’t matter much. Lack of incentive to engage multiple opponents is a concern on paper, but hardly in practice. The requirement of staying in combat is still there, and your offensive skills will do the rest.
The remainder of your post can basically be summarized by the following quote:
By asking for ICD’s on siphons, you are asking for necros to have zero methods for scaling survivability unless ANet gives us things they have specifically and repeatedly said they will not do instead of buffing tools we already have that would work if they didn’t simply suck.
I gave you a paragraph on this already, but I’ll take the scenic route down the a.net tangent with you if you desire. The Anetophobia™ defense is typically the logical place for this debate to end anyway, in fact it mirrors a previous debate I had on the very same topic quite nicely. The argument boils down to something like this: since a.net can’t be trusted to know what they’re doing, and the class is already subpar in terms of defensive measures anyway, we shouldn’t advocate ICDs because a.net is likely to implement them in a vacuum while doing nothing else.
Since I’ve already been down this particular road before, I trust you won’t mind if I switch to cruise control for a moment and, at the risk of tooting my own horn, simply quote myself:
For the record, I’m sure you could probably diagnose half the users on this forum, myself included, with varying degrees of Anetophobia™. There’s always the risk that we’ll end up not with what we ask for, but some kittenized version of it instead. But fear is not a rational basis for decision making. Speaking of which, it’s probably also true that a.net are still afraid of what they saw during the beta. They went the wrong distance down the right road, and as a result we must now drag them back to the idea of attrition kicking and screaming. What a.net really needs to do is hit “Shake It Off!”, stack and buff, and head back into the fray.
As for implementing ICDs in a vacuum, I don’t think anyone was ever arguing that point. ICDs are merely a necessary side effect of letting vampiric traits scale more aggressively with healing power. And even if you get the sustainability part of the equasion right, that still leaves the issues of appropriate levels of DoT and lockdown – neither of which solves the problem in a vacuum either. You need to get all of it right.
Whether a.net shares the same understanding, only time will tell. But we have no choice other than to work with them, and that means giving them the benefit of the doubt.
Some of the terminology is a bit outdated given that it’s a blast from the past, but you get the general idea I’m sure. It’s from a thread started by Kraag, who by the way is on my personal shortlist of users whose writings I implicitly recommend – although if you feel tempted to take a glance I would humbly ask that you have the courtesy not to necro it (how’s that for irony). I’m sure you’ll recognize many of the talking points, and they’re well worth a read.
Anyway, this seems like a good time to wrap this up for now (perhaps for the best as my person is attracting undue attention anyway). We’ve been over most of the relevant stuff as far as I can tell, and as I already alluded to the above argument tends to constitute an impasse. You basically either have faith that a.net will get enough components of the attrition recipe right, or you don’t. Either way, I thank you for playing ball.
All that giving siphons an ICD would do is break them. Either they will never be strong enough to help sustain against more than one target, or they get balanced for that and one opponent will never be able to break through. It’s the same issue we have with Death Shroud: an amount suitable for defense against 3 opponents would be immensely overbearing for one, and an amount balanced for one opponent is just a speed bump against three.
I don’t think we actually disagree that much when it comes to siphons, or at least we seem to agree on the nature of the problem. Consider your own example where a 1v1 involving a necro turns into a 2v2. The fact is you could replace the necro in that example with any other class and the problem would be exactly the same – except you don’t hear other classes going “boo, my Cleansing Wave/Shadow’s Rejuvenation/Virtue of Resolve/Whatever is not enough to deal with incoming damage from multiple sources, give me higher numbers!” They simply make do with the healing they have and accept that it may be inadequate under the circumstances. That’s how raw healing works for all classes, and necromancers do not deserve preferential treatment. Rather, the simple truth is that, as a mechanic, healing based on finite numbers just isn’t meant to counteract damage from multiple sources, for precisely the same reasons you described above – it’s impossible to balance properly for that purpose without breaking it in 1v1 fights, and vice versa.
The answer is you need to compartmentalize your problems. When we’re talking about damage from multiple sources, we need different tools. The reason why other classes survive 1vX situations and we generally don’t isn’t because they have access to healing, but because they have access to something else, namely percentage-based mechanics. Dodges, blocks, invulnerabilities – you name it, they have it. Where the vampiric traits are 1) based on finite numbers and 2) proc on outgoing attacks, these are mechanics that are 1) based on a percentage and 2) proc on incoming attacks. And that’s the answer you’re looking for. You may think you want life siphoning to scale for incoming damage, but you don’t. It’s the wrong thing to ask for and won’t solve the 1vX problem without creating other problems, as we already seem to agree on. What you really want is better access to percentage-based mechanics. And given that that’s the case, I have only one thing to say to you:
Welcome to the club!
It is simply a non-issue that ICD-based siphons won’t scale with the number of opponents, it’s just not the job of life stealing to compensate for such circumstances to begin with. So we’re offloading that concern – and rightly so – to a different set of mechanics that does a better job and can be properly balanced for the purpose. Incidentally, as far as life stealing goes, the place where your analysis (and Andele’s for that matter) is right on the money is … drumroll … signet of vampirism. Here is a siphoning mechanic that is 1) based on finite numbers and 2) procs on incoming damage. An ICD is utterly useless under those circumstances. You would literally have no choice but to, as you put it, pick whatever you feel is the ideal average and just roll with it. And wouldn’t you know it, a.net went with an ICD instead. Go figure.
One last thing. Before you go off on the “a.net has already said we’re not getting x/y/z” tangent, yes that’s true. Some of the most common percentage-based solutions out there are off limits to us (such as vigor and blocking). It’s also true that we don’t have the mobility of other classes, and we’re not getting that either (specifically non-targeted gap closers). But we are by no means out of options. Protection is a boon we already have access to, and we should have more of it. Increased access to stability would help an awful lot with the mobility issue as well. And I don’t know who came up with it, but endurance stealing is a brilliant idea that fits the overall design philosophy of the class to a tee, and it deserves to be promoted fiercely! This is just to name a few by the way, there are plenty of other ideas buried in the depths of this forum that should make their way onto a.net’s table, and it’s our job to make sure they pay attention. Some are admittedly better than others, but there are several quality suggestions out there that would make our life easier in 1vX situations. And as for the vampiric traits – they do have a place in the attrition puzzle, it’s just not the place you think.
TL;DR: Use the right tool for the right job.
I dont think so, the amount of hits per second is limited by nature.
How? Dodges/blocks/invulns/etc don’t behave the way you describe. They merely act as short time-outs, after which the battle resumes. You still have to chew your way through the same amount of EHP. If anything, classes with high access to those mechanics will increase their EHP through heals coming off cooldowns more times the longer a fight takes, which only exacerbates whatever difference already existed between weapon sets.
As for turning parasitic contagion into a viable trait for small scale fights to offset the slower speeds on scepter/staff, we can agree that there are fundamentally two different ways of dealing with sustain. You can either have a build-agnostic option, or you can have enough options that there’s something for every build. That being said, if you want to make both the vampiric traits and parasitic contagion viable in small scale fights, you’re going to end up with a very powerful 6/x/x/3/x condi build, so you would have to deal with that somehow (a problem that is unavoidable to a certain extent anyway).
Factoring all these together will give the necromancer maybe 2 hits per second in average
As stated, we maybe able to profit of our siphons 30% of the total time spent in battle
I’m not sure where you get those numbers from (and at the risk of being a bit flippant, it sounds to me mostly like you’re pulling them out of a hat). Whatever the case, surely you must realize that they’re incredibly unreliable estimates that will vary to a great extent across different game modes. Don’t tell me you expect PvE mobs to somehow avoid 70% of all hits dished out by players?
If reliable, passive sustain that cant be countered is that much stronger than offensive sustain like our siphons something is really wrong. Siphon deal damage, of course, but honestly, the amount is so small, nobody would ever trait into siphons for the damage.. its a nice added thing, but compared on how damage and heal amounts are distributed its really no factor at all.
Agreed wholeheartedly on both points.
Either give it a max “pool” based on healingpower, limit the maximum possible amount of siphoning within 3 seconds to X, where X should be higher then achieveable in a 1 vs 1 scenario, or reduce the amount of siphon for multi target skills. Lets say mark of blood hits the “initial target” for the full amount, and every additional target for 40% of base amount. This would keep it strong in 1v1, as those traits are supposed, and at a reasonable powerlevel in massive hit scenarios.
If the “massive hit scenarios" were limited to AoE only you would be correct. But even when facing only a single target there is still a large difference in how many hits are produced over time depending on the weapon you equip. Especially weapon sets with access to rapidly hitting channeled skills, like those on axe or mainhand dagger, will produce a significantly higher amount of hits over time. Heck, even having a faster or more reliable autoattack will become a factor in how much life you recoup. The bottom line is that even if you took care of AoEs with a soft cap or diminishing returns, you’d still be stuck with a system that plays favorites based on which weapon your build uses.
It’s not just AoEs, it’s anything that causes a significant difference in the amount of hits delivered over time.
If there are multiple targets, it means more incoming damage, thus, more siphoning is required to sustain.
The problem with that assumption is that it just doesn’t hold in all game modes. There are plenty of occasions where multiple targets are present but the necromancer isn’t taking damage from all (or even any) of them – especially outside of organized PvP. You’re then left with the dilemma of either 1) keeping the numbers low enough that they won’t be a problem against multiple targets, in which case they’ll become ineffective against single targets, or 2) buffing the numbers enough that they are relevant vs single targets but overpowered against multiple targets unless some/all of them attack the necro at once.
There’s a third option as well of course, which is trying to find a middle ground that never behaves completely satisfactory in either scenario but doesn’t break the traits too much either – which seems to be what you’re shooting for. But where that system attempts to balance itself on a knife’s edge, an ICD eliminates the knife entirely. That’s not to say you couldn’t get away with what you’re suggesting – in fact, given a.net’s previous small buffs to the vampiric traits there’s at least some evidence that this is precisely what they’ve tried to accomplish in the past – but it’s not as easily balanced or even as elegant as an ICD would be. You’re also going to have problems with encouraging investment in healing power (the better scaling you offer, the higher the numbers become and the system will eventually tilt). Two percent just isn’t enough scaling to encourage investment in gear with healing power on it.
Simply put, death shroud. I was zerging yesterday in full rabid gear, I would use DS, go through a full DS 5/4, fear someone and jump to them (or do the reverse if stability was up), and say, have 5k LF at the end. By the time my DS was off CD it was nearly full again, almost every single time I did this. I was easily getting what would be comparable to 5-7k “healing” (through LF generation) via deaths every 10 seconds. That is massive sustain equivalent to healing signet at its most broken state, just through the profession mechanic and minor traits (soul comprehension and gluttony, parasitic bond if I had 1 in spite).
Agreed, our sustain is good in large scale fights. In fact it gets even better if you’re playing condis, due to Parasitic Contagion actually producing good results under those circumstances. That’s in zerg mode though. Roaming will get very different results. Try being part of a small scale havoc group in WvW, then tell me what you think.
If anything I believe the huge amounts of life force necros have access to in zerg fights only shows how erratic a mechanic player deaths actually is. Its efficiency can vary widely, from near useless to borderline OP, and you can find yourself at the end of either extreme of the spectrum depending on what you’re doing.
In WvW any build that has toughness in all of its stat components will have tons of attrition.
Well, to be fair that’s a rather generous definition of attrition. If having high defensive stats is all it takes to make the cut, all classes have potentially good attrition. Of course you’re right about WvW necros having access to better resource stacking (primarily through Dire gear). We still can’t reliably renew those resources though.
Look i cant bother kittening around with someone who has bloody little to noone mmo history who actually does the assumptions, I KNOW FORM EXAMPLES, which trough 5 (7 if you count side scrolling) MMORPGs that icds on offensive sustain, no matter what kind, dont work.
If that’s how you feel we’ll table the discussion – it seems to be taking a personal turn anyway.
I think the reason the whole combo system is so underdeveloped on the necromancer is that a.net just doesn’t consider them to be a class that does that sort of thing. I’m all for improving it though, if anything it only rewards skillful play and there’s no real reason why it can’t be part of the class makeup. I have to say I absolutely love the Lingering Marks idea, that just needs to happen. The tricky part will be finding good candidates for finishers of various kinds, ideally spread out somewhat equitably throughout the weapon sets, but it looks like you’re well on your way already.
I’m especially excited about the prospect of increased access to nondamaging conditions that complement attrition through combos. Blind, weakness, and chill are all prime candidates, to the degree that they can be incorporated.
My dream version of Dark Path is a revamp of the spell used by Risen Nobles in Orr. Same windup with a casting animation lasting roughly one second, after which the teleport happens. No projectile, and ideally no range check on completion (only on beginning of cast). The teleport would happen regardless, while other effects would be dodgeable.
That would tick all the boxes for me.
(it will require a high base number thus hampered more by heal reductions and prone to being a nubstomp, skilled enemies will be able to shut down such build way to easy and it still wont do anything in 1vx situations nor will its effects be a reasonable function in burst vs attrition fights unless the numbers are flat out op).
Seriously just compare and contrast old spectral walk to new spectral walk.
You assume too much.
Anyway, as to the points you raised, there are no healing reduction mechanics in GW2 that function the way you describe. We have poison, which is a percentage-based reduction that lasts a given duration. It will prevent the same amount of healing over time regardless of how many procs that healing is distributed over, namely 33%. There’s nothing about healing reduction in GW2 that prevents an ICD from doing its job properly.
Second, no one said anything about life siphons being applicable as a defense against burst damage or 1vX. In fact I have argued against that very point myself repeatedly in previous posts. You need different mechanics to deal with that problem, and I’ve given suggestions on how to accomplish that as well if you care to look. The purpose of life siphoning is to provide a steady influx of moderate healing over time – nothing more, nothing less. Focus fire is a separate problem, and requires separate solutions.
And lastly, I’m well aware of how spectral walk functions. I also explained to you why that argument is not applicable. Effects based on damage taken require different mechanics than effects based on damage dealt. The poster child of poor ICD implementation, by the way, is Signet of Vampirism – a perfect demonstration of why a skill that procs based on damage taken seizes to function properly when an ICD is applied. Effects such as the vampiric traits, however, have no problem functioning under an ICD. It makes no difference whether you siphon, say, 150 hp from one proc per second or 30 hp from five procs per second – the former is simply easier to balance, especially when scaling is involved.
Non sequitur, offensive sustain (in comparison to defensive actives and passive regen) HAS to scale of enemies, its basic requirement is hitting enemies and unlike passive sustain doesnt have a 100% guarantee nor like defensive sustain/actives has a alerting change in gameplay/playstyle one can assume.
Offensive sustain requires the presence of at least one target. However, it does not necessarily have to scale with the number of targets – circumstance and design dictate whether that is desirable.
If balance does dictate one might take actions like taking a max potential heal from a skill (so for example Holy nova can heal a max of 8k healing, if you are the only person in the aoe, you get healed for 8k, if there is a friend, you get 4k each; if applied to damage can be, assuming base damage is 75, max damage pre target is +50, thus if a aoe hits 2 people, both take 63 damage, if there are 3 people they take 58, if there are 5 all take 55).
No idea what a “holy nova” is, but implementing a maximum cap on the amount of healing received won’t work very well in this case. Some weapons land many more hits over time than others by design, and unless you compensate for that you’re still stuck with a system that plays favorites. If you can control how often the vampiric traits proc, you can make them equally viable for all builds (every weapon set can manage one attack per second) and much more effective than they currently are since aggressive scaling with healing power becomes possible. If the number of procs depends on build-specific factors, you cannot.
My goal is for the vampiric traits to become 1) reliable regardless of circumstance and 2) build-agnostic. A one second ICD accomplishes that. I’m not sure how you think that “butchers the intended purpose” of them. I for one call it a win.
(edited by ManaCraft.5630)
Personally, I feel life force generation is pretty close to as high as it should be right now for great sustain.
Condi necros are still relatively subpar when it comes to replenishing life force. I wouldn’t mind a slight buff at all.
In PvE and WvW, necro sustain isn’t quite the issue. PvE is so easy sustain doesn’t really matter (sadly). WvW, you have lots of people peeling for you and group healing going on. Realistically speaking, the extra healing wouldn’t make much of a difference in those modes.
Please do not make the mistake of reducing WvW to zerg mode, even on a T1 server this is a gross misrepresentation of the format. Attrition ability is hugely important for necros in WvW. Of course, if you never roam, you won’t notice – when the Babysitter Blob™ is around you’re almost always relatively safe. Large engagements provide a structured setup with healing ability offloaded to other classes (ele and guard primarily), but in small scale combat you see the exact same dynamics you would encounter in PvP. The longer the fight lasts, the larger your disadvantage. If the fight lasts long enough, you eventually run out of resources. Plus you share the same vulnerability to focus fire. Any half-decent roaming group will call a necro as their first target.
Where necros in WvW stand out is in terms of offensive output – primarily due to PvP-only bleed nerfs, 40% duration food, and the still slightly ridiculous perplexity runes. That, and condi necros also have decent sustain in zerg fights (ironically where you need it the least) because of Parasitic Contagion ramping up significantly in effectiveness under those circumstances.
As all previous MMOs show, ICD skills on sustain are bad… very very bad… hell even here in GW2, it butchered the usage of Swalk.
ICDs have a tendency to be bad on skills that are based on incoming damage. The vampiric traits are based on outgoing damage, which is why ICDs are appropriate. More than that, they’re hands down necessary if you ever want to balance those traits properly. As long as life stealing can trigger up to five times for each attack via AoE, balancing has to take that into account and the traits will remain relatively weak as a result. The whole idea behind an ICD is to limit the number of triggers per attack to one, regardless of circumstance. Then you can start buffing the traits without breaking them in situations where multiple targets are present.
We have ICDs on life stealing food and sigils for the exact same reason.
The trait actually isn’t that bad, it’s just buried too deep in the trait line to be worthwhile. For 30 points in soul reaping I would expect something more significant. Foot in the Grave would have to be made more accessible for me to consider investing in it – in fact, as a whole, necromancers just need better access to stability.
Not exactly a newsflash, but I want two things in particular.
1: A new M/GM trait for the blood line that transforms the vampiric traits into something actually useful while promoting the healing power attribute. Ideally it should make the vampiric traits work at equal capacity regardless of the number of targets present, and should probably also be exclusive to non-minion builds since minion necros would otherwise have access to two powerful sustain traits. Something along the lines of “if you control no minions, Vampiric and Vampiric Precision gain a 1 second ICD and scale more effectively with healing power”.
2: A mechanic that adds percentage-based damage prevention to death shroud entry. You have to address the focus fire issue somehow, and linking it to death shroud entry is an obvious move because it creates a tradeoff between holding onto death shroud for protection against damage spikes but forgoing the extra offensive potential, or activating it for the extra damage but subsequently opening yourself up to damage spikes for a period of time. I imagine something along the lines of a new trait, probably in death magic or perhaps soul reaping, that adds a short duration protection on DS entry (or even straight up invulnerability, although I think protection is more likely). Slap whatever you think is a suitably long ICD on it for balance – minimum 10 seconds so that Near to Death is a non-issue. The exact design isn’t really important, as long as it fulfills its general purpose.
Beyond that there are a whole bunch of smaller things such as healing at least partially enabled in death shroud (perhaps as a new blood magic trait), a more reliable and build-agnostic way of gaining life force in place of creature deaths, life stealing that scales to become more effective over time the longer you are in combat (perhaps a blueprint for a redesign of signet of vampirism), better access to stability, weakness-based endurance stealing, effects based on health sacrifice, and so on – but all of that is just gravy.
Quit buying Gems.
This. A.net seems to be devoting the lion’s share of resources (made from gem purchases or otherwise) to the advancement of other formats anyway, so if you don’t like their priorities, vote with your wallet. As someone who has probably spent enough money in the gem store to buy the game six or seven times over, I for one have no intention of continuing to support their agenda. Incidentally, a.net’s unwillingness to deal with population imbalance in a meaningful way is a big part of the reason for that, but I don’t think it’s surprising given that the player base is obviously divided over the issue, as past debates have shown.
You know, how about we make siphons scale on something actually related to death shroud… like vitality? Or make a overall triple imput (vitality boosts both components, power boosts damage, healing power boosts healing) with current scaling multipliers (0.2% for P/HP and 0.4% for vitality?)
I wouldn’t outright dismiss the idea, you probably have some room to work with, but it’s a mechanic that easily gets out of hand. It depends on the extent to which you think it’s healthy for a class to be allowed to double dip with an attribute. Or triple dip rather, since vitality would then boost life, life force, and healing. To be honest, with the already high amount of base life on necros, you’d probably have a hard time justifying it.
If the blood line was designed properly, no one would care about dire gear – they’d be worried about apothecary’s instead.
Dark path won’t become a ground targeted spell, it doesn’t have anything to do with balance as such, it just goes against the class design. I’ve always thought it deserved to be a non-projectile spell, akin to what Risen Nobles in Orr can do, but that’s about it. The only issue is reliability, otherwise it should remain as is. Target independent gap closers are off limits to necromancers.
There are other things as well, like vigor and evades, that we’ll never get. Blocks and aegis don’t make a whole lot of sense either. Though I could imagine a short duration invulnerability on necros, perhaps tied to DS entry/exit (cooldown can be adjusted as needed). That would be one possible contribution to solving the focus fire issue. Stability is another (and probably more likely) way to go, and also seems to be on the table, so while it isn’t much there are a few options available.
The other problem that must be addressed is sustain. Current options are either only good for specific builds (i.e. minion necros), only work with an abundance of targets around (parasitic contagion, vampiric traits), or are just plain underwhelming (unholy sanctuary). It’s odd how a.net insists on building inherent limitations into our sustain traits that make them redundant one way or another. Anyway, I still believe the best option is a redesign of the blood line so that 1) the vampiric traits can become viable (or be replaced with something that is) and 2) healing power can become a relevant attribute for necromancers, so that we can get a proper tradeoff going between offense/defense.
I tend to think the main problem with necromancers bring classified as an attrition class is that the design just fundamentally runs counter to that plan. Necromancers are designed around finite resources. Currently there simply is no way to reliably renew our health pool and life force (outside of a few, select builds). On a class with finite resources, the clock essentially begins ticking from the moment you engage. Finite resources reward a bursty style of play, which is to say that you must deal enough damage over time to kill your opponent before you run out of said resources. It is no accident that Dhuumfire – the one trait that allowed necromancers an inordinate amount of burst damage – is the one that lifted them into the realm of viability (and beyond). Of course that amount of condiburst is nonsensical and unhealthy for the game, hence the recent nerf which I will be the first to admit was entirely deserved. We are all fundamentally better off with a necromancer that deals moderate damage over time, rather than the silly amount of condiburst enabled by pre-patch Dhuumfire.
The problem is that a design based on finite resources does not reward moderate damage. The design needs to be shifted toward renewable resources instead. A class with renewable resources can play the waiting game, can afford to deal moderate damage over time while employing stalling tactics to eventually whittle down the opponent. Renewable resources reward the attrition style of play. It is not a concern that damage output is merely moderate, so long as you can buy enough time for it to work. Put simply, necromancers need better sustain – and presently the tools we have either aren’t good enough or just plain don’t exist. The means by which the necromancer renews its health pool and life force need to be 1) reliable and 2) build-agnostic. Speaking of which, I continually wonder why a supposed attrition class would have resource renewal tied to something as situational as player deaths, an entirely unreliable mechanic – but I digress. In any case, allowing necromancers to reliably renew their resources is, in my humble opinion, the first step on the path toward viability without having to rely on bursty gimmick traits like pre-patch Dhuumfire.
WvW is a numbers game. Whenever a server is consistently able to beat the opposition, it is due to coverage. Nothing more, nothing less. Anyone who thinks their server is somehow the exception is merely deluding themselves.
The format would no doubt be better off without the additional inflation – including the world bonuses and bloodlust stat buffs, since you didn’t bring those up. I don’t think you’re going to have a lot of luck promoting that particular point of view though. The broader player mass has always been loath to give up their power creep once it’s implemented. There’s usually an overwhelming amount of resistance to change when it comes to taking away bonuses. Developers don’t tend to be cooperative either, making it notoriously difficult to turn back the clock.
I agree that there would likely not be enough material to warrant a separate cast for WvW, but certainly a section of the existing ones could be devoted to WvW. If there isn’t much to talk about it’s mainly due to improvements to WvW being implemented at a snail’s pace. There are plenty of topics that could be covered if a.net weren’t so content with the status quo.
The mods really need to sticky the post made by Devon saying megaservers are never coming to wvw for the foreseeable future.
That probably still won’t make the conspiracy theorists take off their tinfoil hats…
Anyway, the most likely scenario I can imagine is WvW as we know it simply being allowed to run its course. Servers will probably continue to cannibalize each other’s WvW communities on a semi-regular basis in an effort to stay on top of the food chain until the point where natural player attrition makes this strategy unviable. The eventual outcome will be a few, strong servers at the top, with the rest either dead or dying.
In other words, the status quo.
Many of us have promoted similar ideas for quite some time now. Basically WvW consisting – at least scorewise – of three factions instead of a multitude of smaller matchups. In my opinion this, or something similar, is still the best possible fix for population imbalances. Several different designs have been suggested already, yours is basically a revamping of the guesting system, relying on hard transfers to do the job instead. I think people might be less willing to move servers than you imagine, but I’ll still back your idea as being preferable to the status quo any day.
Good luck dealing with the server pride proponents, they will be your single biggest obstacle.
I applaud a.net for attempting to bring a more competitive spirit to WvW, as well as the addition of mistforged weapons. WvW players deserve rewards that are unique to their format, same as other players from other formats, and we’ve waited about two years for that.
Still, without a fix for population imbalances, tournaments won’t make much sense. All seasons accomplish at the moment is rewarding those with the right zip code, while everyone else gets to run in circles for nine weeks. The format is fundamentally flawed at the core, and any tournament structure you superimpose upon it will inevitably inherit those flaws.
I don’t imagine for one moment that there is a perfect solution for player stacking. But there are systems that consistently mitigate the impact of that behavior, many of which have been presented to a.net already, and I would prefer the majority of them to the status quo.
Tournaments like this work if you have a field of relatively equally competitive opponents. In the absence of that, it doesn’t matter which system you use – the results will be skewed regardless.
What are your expectations for WvW?
Status quo.
Players are like water, they inevitably follow the path of least resistance. If a.net creates a system that promotes stacking to win, players will stack. Blaming players for the current state of affairs in WvW is putting the cart before the horse.
Since we still have servers and those servers have population imbalances as well as time zone coverage imbalances there are no tournament systems that will work. There are very few “fair” match-ups and those quickly become imbalanced from transfers. Even when matched against those closest to your servers score there will almost always be a dominant server.
Pretty much this. Any WvW tournament structure is only as good as its underlying framework. If you want tournaments that are more fair, population imbalance has to be addressed. The rest will follow.
But looking at it realistically and working with what we have, if anything I actually prefer the Season 2 tournament structure to that of Season 1. It’s true that 2v1’s can be quite boring, but at least it opens up an opportunity for counterplay against raw coverage. It’s a bad system in several ways, but so is anything else you would care to put in its place so long as populations are what they are.
If the megaserver system is not 100% functional yet (i.e putting players on wrong instances, not with his guildmates, parties, etc), it’s just a matter of fixing it. It’s a really new system, and it’s expected some problems.
And how fun even matches 24/7 is “nothing to show for it”? It’s just everything WvW was supposed to be.
There is no way to fix it – that’s the point. You’re making the assumption that there is only ever one desirable map choice for each player. Reality isn’t that simple. Friends/guildies/contacts/whatever can potentially be spread across several different maps. A call for reinforcements can obligate players to join a different map than they would otherwise. Or perhaps players might want to attack a new map due to strategic reasons. And so on, and so on. Players may want to join another map than the one the system assigns to them for a multitude of different reasons and there simply is no way for the system to always make the right call. It’s bound to go wrong, the flaw is inherent to the system.
As for balanced matches, you already have that in an alliance system where players are allowed to choose where they play – there is no reason to introduce semi-random algorithms into the mix. It’s a straight up loss compared to the alternative. Forced map assignments inhibit the ability to conduct organized warfare. Voluntary map assignments do not.
Every time you enter any of the 4 WvW maps, you would be put in the same instance that your friends, guildies and parties are. I’m reallly failing in see the difference from what we currently have, except that the numbers of the 3 alliances on the map would be even and the matches would be actually fun.
It’s the difference between 1) being able to choose the map you want to play on and 2) potentially ending up on the wrong map without being able to do anything about it. I’m not really sure how else to explain it to you. You’re making a sacrifice with nothing to show for it, plain and simple.
If you want to understand why the difference is so significant, I suggest you go to the general discussion forum and read some of the recent feedback posts on the megaserver system. You’ll quickly find out why choice is so important to players.
megaserver prioritization doesn’t actually work so they’re actually just another word for overflow servers which is exactly what EOTM is.
Well that still doesn’t change the fact that there is no sorting mechanism of any kind applied in EotM beyond color. The mechanisms of the megaserver system are (one would hope) a good deal more advanced. Whether or not they work to your satisfaction is an entirely different subject.
On a more fundamental level though, I’ll agree with you that removing choice from the player comes at a fairly steep cost. But I’m not ready to make a call about the performance of megaservers in PvE quite yet, it simply hasn’t been long enough.
Megaserver already exist in EotM … it was the first megaserver
No, it just lumps all players of a certain color together. The megaserver system prioritizes a certain instance for you based on a number of variables. To the best of my knowledge nothing similar occurs in EotM – though I’d love for you to prove me wrong on that.