Guild Wars 2

The great loot-stick nerfed?? One less reason to come back which I’ve been debating recently.

OP, we all know the wvw servers are limited in cpu calculations and network activity. Of course I don’t know the specific numbers but it would be safe to say that for each AoE limit increase from 5 the requirements grow exponentially (faster and faster). And I’d estimate it’s upwards of 50% increase in both required CPU power and network traffic per player limit increase.
Now you know why this request is crazy. Skill lag and network delay lag abound.

I agree with OP. I think a small 5 man team should engage the structure in order to contest the waypoint. 1 man for white swords. This promotes havoc teams and still does not require a full zerg to do the job.

Swamurabi.7890:

Why is WvW only fun when you outnumber or out coverage the opponent?

If you’re in a pug zerg I think the above question is valid, but in a guild group face-rolling gets boring pretty fast for most. Unless you’re salty about the opponent lol, and there is a lot of salt in wvw.

Collectively the nature of people in this game mode is one that will bandwagon (tranfers) or exploit a scoring loop hole (nightcap). It’s human nature to find the easy path to succeed. They could blow it up and rebuild but people will always figure out new ways to exploit no matter how clever Anet is.

That said the game isn’t broken, there is solid competition in every tier if you seek it out.

Clearing five catas in three fast shots is OP. Bypassing siege placement caps is OP.

Make vague, confusing haiku formed requests and Anet gives in everytime.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Since we have been seeing an increase in transfer behavior with the past 2 world links, we are discussing whether we want to change how we calculate WvW world populations or if we want to lower the WvW population caps.

Thank you for the transparency. It means a lot to me. If you could divulge more into this thinking in the future that’d be amazing!

One of the main factors that may or may not be missing in the population cap calculations is coverage. For example if BG has the advantage 50 vs 10 during SEA means a lot more than a deficit of 160 vs 200 during NA. A weighted population cap by skirmish would factor in.

TC for 2.5 years >> left game for 1 year >> transfer to IoJ for 2 weeks (paired with JQ) >> transfer to SoR for 2 weeks (paired with DB) >> transfer to DB for 4 weeks > transfer back to TC for 3 months and counting

The existing solution is superior.
But I do like #2 in that it puts more of the “Guild” back into GW2.

>>>Best solution is to blow it up and setup WvW to truely be “Guild Wars” where guilds choose their preferred partners in crime each week. And as a consolation allow players to retain a title being your preferred server name. And if people are really that hard up on it they can just create a JQ guild and invite everyone :P

1. How do you feel about this proposal?
> Good, it is a reasonable concept. An unlikely worse case scenario is very few folks move to these new servers, but no harm no foul. And it should balance over time with incentives.

2. What, if anything, would you change about this current proposal?
> A likely outcome is that one of the new servers gets a large influx of organized guilds. I recommend restricting the new servers to a much lower population at first (i.e. 100 max transfers) and over time to be opened up as you see fit. Similarly, lowering the population cap on existing servers should be tightened gradually to allow folks to adjust. Ask the community on reasonable incentives to transfer off FULL servers beyond just “Free”.
You might consider a better approach for complete guilds to transfer, so that some members don’t get locked out.

3. Would you be interested in transferring to a new free world?
> If my guild was then yes. But many have been on TC since launch so who knows.

Mikhael.2391:

Tbh just balance classes first then worry about the rest. If balance not fixed new content doesnt matter.

They’ve said it before they have a team dedicated to balance/bug fixes which for better or worse they take things in stride. But they also have a team dedicated to enhancements and new features.

A lot of folks just say bug fixes/balance, the question here is really other than that what could be done to enhance WvW.

Naturally, players evolve metas which then shakes up the balance continuum. If that was all they focused on, nothing else would change.

Jeknar.6184:

Because if they went full kitten PPT mode while TC were tanking, they would end up there since YB is also losing rating.

Even full PPT mode would be a stretch +50 on both TC and YB. Regardless, others were talking about JQ tanking not avoiding all out PPT.

Why would JQ be tanking or even in the conversation of tanking? This week they started with <1% chance of moving up to third place and thus losing a linked server. The real third place competition is YB/TC.

Not only stomps but bombs on the downs are very rewarding.

OP you may have a point but it just doesn’t look good to ask help when BG is finally not the clear #1 server. And you’re projected #2 so it’s hardly a charity case.

Give it a couple more weeks of fading and revisit. =b

Easy fix to boon sharing problem, cap boon sharing for quickness and resistance to around 20s. Good day.

FA got some transfers, and hanged with JQ last week, so they can hang in T1.

Buff condi in wvw, bring back perma stealth thieves and bring back culling… problem sovled. Orb glitches anyone?? /ftwThisThread /s

In the words of the great Bobby Boucher, “PvE is the devil!”

The hidden secret is that transfers generate a ton of revenue for Anet. Whatever they do they are not going throw away that money. It is a business after all with salaries to pay. Transfers benefit all aspects of the game.

Therefore bandwagoning will always exist you can only hope it is not too extreme.

Heimlich.3065:

My point is that I used a weighted average as well, based on the exact same data, but with a slightly different interpretation and came up with a different value. Choice in how to calculate a weighted average matters a lot (iow, a weighted average tends to give disproportionate weight to larger numerical values). Consider if they had an option to re-link once per 10 years and 1% of people chose that

If the poll options were worded to say twice per year, 3 times per year, 4 times per year, etc. then I could see your point.

Macilien.3078:

Another option would be a median, which is currently 2 month. This way 53.3% voted for no more than 2 month and 60.3% voted for at least 2 month.

There ya go!

Heimlich.3065:

Nah, lets weight it by number of link changes in a year (i.e. 12/link duration)

(35.8%=12, 26.9%=4, 14.9%=6, 10.6%=2, 6.9%=ignore, 4.9%=3)

That averages to a preference for 7.1 link changes per year or a change every 1.7
months, or approximately every 7 weeks.

Not sure they’d look it that way, but you may be close… I’m thinking they’ll take the weighted average which is ~2.46 and based on the poll options choose 2 months (the closest match).

Dawdler.8521:

Hypothetically that’s impossible. 4 months currently have 4.8% (less than undecided votes at 7%) and 6 months have 10.9%.

That’s why it is hypothetical. If you want real numbers at this point in time (35.8%=1, 26.9%=3, 14.9%=2, 10.6%=6, 6.9%=ignore, 4.9%=4).

Does 1 month win or do you take the weighted average which is about 2.5 months?

We take the weighted average of all voters which is 2.5 months or 10 weeks.

Hypothetically, if 1 month is 34%, 4 month is 33%, and 6 month is 33% then would it make sense to choose 1 month? Two thirds of the population preferred at least 4 months would be the counter.

An accumulated average of all votes is the logical choice.

Hexinx.1872:

By now, everyone has at some point seen a decline in WvW population activity outside of reset night.

Reset night starting at 10:15PM ET for the first time ever, you most certainly have seen a population dip.

OP, I disagree, the polls are a great way for ANet to see where the community is at.

Hopefully there will be a Desert BL acceptance poll before the end of this quarter.

• Mixed Borderlands – Not if Desert, but YES if shrunken and flattened Desert.
• World Linking Schedule – 6 weeks, enough so that voice chat maintenance is reasonable.
• Deployable Mortars – Sure why not.
• Deployable Cannons – No, impacts open field combat too much. Maybe a toned down cannon.
• Repair Hammer – No, too messy and complicated to manage, some things are better simplified rather than over-complicated.
• WvW Priorities – Address population imbalance at a time-zone (region) basis. Goal is even fights 24/7. Also, a new, improved borderland map to cycle in.

Heimlich.3065:

No rational player is going to volunteer to join a team that’s liable to lose.

I don’t see how this new world would be liable to lose. The primary goal is to give Anet more flexibility when pairing worlds so that in general match ups are more evenly distributed (scoring-wise). The chances of winning would essentially be random.

I still think the correct solution is match ups should be region based: a heavily OCX server shouldn’t match up to a heavily EU server if you catch my drift (aka PvD), I suggested a solution in a recent post.

The key here is that population balance at each time slot needs to be more consistent and we will naturally have fewer transfers.

Matching up strong EU/NA servers with OCX servers makes the overall score close but the constant population disparity makes game play less intriguing. End result is “band wagoners”. Scoring adjustments would not necessarily help.

Consider: Each time-slot (8 hour window) should have a unique match-up. For example:

T1 OCX matchup: BG/JQ/DB
T1 EUR matchup: BG/TC/YB
T1 USA matchup: BG/TC/DB

Overall you have one weekly score for each server as an overall ranking, optionally a score within the time-slot. The glicko logic analyzes match-ups solely based on time-slot.

The challenge for ANet is there needs to be a 15 minute downtime every 8 hours to restore yesterday’s map state and matchup.

Another benefit is on Friday every time-slot can have it’s own fresh reset night, currently only enjoyed by NA.

Josh XT.6053:

Swedemon.4670:

Call me crazy but isn’t EotM ideal for roaming and small team capping? Is it the fact that it doesn’t impact PPT that it’s non-preferred? Seems ideal, as there are no queues, plenty of room, and rarely blobs.

I haven’t seen EotM suggested so I’m probably way off.

You’re crazy. (Just doing as you asked.)

But to your question, no – it isn’t ideal for roamers. Like DBL, its too big and you spend too much time running around trying to find people. Not many “roamers” just want to go around taking camps.

Thanks, makes perfect sense.

I wonder if another (crazy) option for Roamers is to transfer to T4 (US) or T6 (EU). Unfortunate as you leave your original home, but could provide the preferred game play.

Call me crazy but isn’t EotM ideal for roaming and small team capping? Is it the fact that it doesn’t impact PPT that it’s non-preferred? Seems ideal, as there are no queues, plenty of room, and rarely blobs.

I haven’t seen EotM suggested so I’m probably way off.

Sakara Prime.5370:

FLAMES INC

I agree with everything you said, sorry to disappoint.

74.9% and climbing, was 73.8% half a day ago.

@Jayne, I could be wrong but are you assuming that the recent transfers to lower tier servers are going to stay put if there is an unlinking? I would guess the opposite as the gameplay will be more a roaming style than a blob style. That said, the full servers will prevent these transfers from relocating again, and thus cause them to quit for the time being.

Cool idea but the servers are already at capacity. You’d have to reduce the max population on a map to allow for observers. Or code something clever to minimize the amount of data observers receive in blob fights.

I agree with the OP. That is a cool idea. Friday is usually a care free day anyways due to score differences so why not spice it up, make it an creative day with no score.

lil devils x.6071:

They ALREADY stated 5pm PST is too early and does not work, so that idea has already been declined.

Clearly, and this post is here to to ask them to reconsider, and we’re providing reasons it doesn’t work. 5pm for west coasters is too early, 10pm for east coasters is too late. Again, at least west coasters can queue and join for several hours either way.

It sounds like the ONLY solution that works for both parties is to make it fixed 6pm/9pm year round and adjust for daylight savings.

lil devils x.6071:

So in November, it IS set to 6pm EST.

This was not missed. The request is to revert the change that made the reset one hour later year round. Reset night has never started at 10:15pm US Eastern time until recently which is crazy late for the majority of east coasters. In November it will bounce back to 9pm, so are we to enjoy reset only for the winter season?

lil devils x.6071:

Actually for years they have been hearing " Reset time is too early please move it up* from players that are not home from work yet. I am not on the west coast, but I have heard more than my share of complaints from people who were not home from work for reset for years. THIS is the first time they have been able to play reset at all. The US is a big place, East coast is not all that exists.

I can definitely see west coast perspective where you come home and are greeted by long queues, and I agree that should be addressed. By 8pm most of the east coast are signing off providing a good three hours of game play. Not great because you had to wait in queue, perhaps during dinner, but the west coast does get a long period of reset enjoyment.

If you look at the east coast perspective (for those that aren’t night owls) our reset playing window is reduced from roughly 9:15pm to 11pm down to 10:15pm to 11pm. Is 45 minutes of game play worth getting excited about?

So I would argue that Anet addressed one medium issue and created one large issue.

Chris Barrett.3280:

Which is 5pm PST. Too early for those living on the West Coast.

Uhm, Yes but the west coast have a 6 hour window to queue up and contribute for several hours. Whereas east coast has less than 1 hour.

The question here is not regarding Daylight savings, the question is why did it move from being 8pm/9pm ET to 9pm/10pm ET? This completely screws the east coast for 6 months of the year. Please address that question.

Friday night used to be the most exciting night. Now it’s why bother for less than one hour. How is this not obvious?

For the past month every 30 to 60 minutes I lose connection, everyone runs into walls. I’m so used to it now I just roll with it. If I’m lucky it comes back like a lag spike but most of the time I’m back in the queue (usually there is one). I don’t have this issue with other mmo’s or media streams only GW2 wvw. This kitten needs to be fixed.

Please change – 10pm gives one hour before reasonable bedtime US Eastern.

PPT should be impacted by current WvW population in a scaled manner. Scaled meaning that the PPT multiplier gradually goes up or down based on average population per server per time interval. So if a server is suddenly losing keeps/towers they won’t benefit immediately by disconnecting, things like that.

Main thing to avoid here is that roamers are not impacted and general players don’t feel they are better off leaving to benefit ppt.

Colorblind here. I often can’t see the affects of the red in purple (compared to blue) or brown (compared to green). Red by itself is fine. Other than those am fine, but worth checking the other common colorblind types. The idea of different shape tags is preferable as well.

How’s this any different than the prior T1 servers that faded?

Kudos to anet for trying something fresh, with good potential.

Some feedback for the common “cons”:

-Queue hell… If EB is packed then queue a BL and roam on EotM.
-Blob hell… Learn to avoid blobs. If you like roaming then choose a BL or EotM.
-Lag hell… When the lag hits too hard simply relocate. Always turn down settings.
-Small server death… You should already be tight knit: keep ties, seek each other out, coordinate as you have.

There have been a lot of good ideas on this topic since the beginning, but it is a tricky riddle to solve. Considered this one:

The WvW score will now include a “Match-up Point Modifier” that scales intelligently over time. This point modifier factors in a concept of diminishing returns in scenarios that a server is either dominating or getting crushed for an extended period.

Example Timeline:
– Servers A, B, C are all ticking between 180 to 300 points. The point modifier is 1.0.
– Server A starts dominating and reaches beyond 400 points. The point modifier remains 1.0.
– Server A continues to dominate for an hour at 400+. The point modifier drops to 0.5.
– 4 hours later Server A, B, C resume even match-up. The point modifier adjusts to 1.0.

The point modifier would apply to all servers. The end result is a reduction of a extreme swings (most likely) due to population imbalance. I think it’s important that the point modifier does not factor in current WvW population for reasons we’ve already stated. Rather the modifier factors in to reduce the effects of extended domination or of being crushed.

This solution does not completely eliminate all of the issues, but it greatly reduces the major score swings due to population imbalance. It also allows the population caps and server identity to remain in tact while improving the likelihood of a fair match-up. Night capping still exists but it shouldn’t leave a server with-out hope.

The goal is that at any given time the wvw population is equal. Of course, you can toy around with having a population-weighted PPT formula but that stills leaves lopsided situations in the field and across all maps.

>>> It’s important to note the primary population windows change drastically across the respective prime-times: NA, SEA and EU.

An existing scenario that identifies today’s conflict:
>>> Server A and Server B share roughly the same overall wvw population however Server A is very strong SEA and Server B is very strong NA. The end result is a match-up that is constantly lopsided. An actual example of this is Sea of Sorrows and Maguuma. Overall they are close but during SEA SoS rofl-stomps everyone except Tier 1.

>>> The question is how do we segregate these population imbalances without an insane overhaul?

Proposal:
>>> Servers and scores are now identified by three separate 8 hour time slots, NA, EU and SEA. Using Server time as a base NA is 4pm to 2am, SEA is 2am to 10am, and EU is 10am to 4pm. Every 8 hours the server match-ups will reset to the previous days’ map for the same window. The scores, rankings and match-ups will be separate as well.

For example:
>>> Let’s take a scenario from the perspective of Tarnished Coast. The SEA match-up is Tarnished Coast vs Maguuma vs FA would match up starting from 2am. At 10am the wvw would go down and transition back to the EU match-up as Tarnished Coast vs Jade Quarry vs Blackgate. The map would reset to the same state as it was in EU from the previous day.

>>> The formulas would remain the same to determine the match-ups except that it will formulate 3 scores for each server based on the primetime window. Rankings will be provided as a server cumulative and separately for the respective time slot.

>>> A slight modification to reduce the number of resets is to only have two time slots combining EU and NA as 1pm to 1am and SEA as 1am to 1pm. But this may still have imbalances of course between EU and NA.

One idea for a fix is the Bloodlust buff will act as an automatic territorial buff to keeps, towers and camps. This is along the same lines as the existing WvW Guild buffs for claimed locations.

titanlectro.5029:

WvW is about strategy. You are supposed to take advantage of every unfair aspect, it is war. That is why there is siege, walls, and upgrades.

If one side has a ballista behind their zerg, they have an advantage. If one side has the bloodlust buff, they have an advantage. WvW is a strategy game, and it is supposed to be that way.

The correct place for “toe to toe” “everything is fair” fighting is sPvP. I realize that sPvP is woefully inadequate for a lot of types of pvp, but that is sPvP’s problem, not WvW’s. They should not design WvW to be what sPvP ought to be. Instead they ought to improve the sPvP game mode so it can run GvG and duels and deathmatch.

You know, that is a fair point. And I agree sPvP does a poor job in filling this void which hopefully does get remedied up the road. Nevertheless, prior to the bloodlust buff everyone had the option to step away from a tower and keep for a time to challenge their opponent on relatively even ground. With the bloodlust buff you do not have this option. Like when Bobby Fischer defeated Boris Spassky in Chess during the Cold War, do you think either opponent wanted to have an unfair advantage? The Bloodlust buff should be an individual choice or perhaps only applicable within the confines of towers or keeps.