Guild Wars 2

I’ve been thinking similarly about how to help WvW.

My thoughts are to assign servers one of six colors, trying to even out representation of the three time periods.
Then, you use the megaserver model for entering a borderland. Giving preference to guild and squads. Once that version of Red BL fills, a second instance opens. If the map you’re trying to enter is queued, you are given choice to queue up or to enter next version of the map, having the ability to requeue once in so that you can eventually join your guild’s raid.
While there are still some staunch proponents for server identity, most WvW players (by my experience) would rather have a night of good fights, rather than server purity.
It also allows for the opportunity to possibly run with some folks that you normally wouldn’t get a chance to without a server transfer.
We know that “seasons” are dead, so there’s really no reason to maintain server-based scoring, other than the current matchup process.
This method also allows for more style based play because those that like guild raids will be able to get in with guildies and run groups against full borderlands of other groups. Those that like to roam, most likely, end up in borderlands with a lot of other roamers, so that you can fight your 1v1s without much concern for being blobbed down.
It’ll also take away the intentional tanking by servers, so that you get a better relink.
All the developers will have to worry about is rotating colors (you were red last week, this week you’ll be purple)
All the players have to worry about it joining the fight in a borderland. You won’t have those “wonderful” times when ten people are trying to defend air keep from a full map blob. Or, at least, they should be very rare.

SkyShroud.2865:

Ermmm.

1. There are 4 tiers
2. Each server’s players are able to choose one of the 4 tiers, at any time, to play. They just cannot split themselves up to play in two places at the same time.
3. Each tier are design in sizes than actual rank, in other words, different map cap.
4. Servers are assigned with certain colors which is decided by anet
5. Servers with color A will play at A side, B at B side, C at C side
6. There is a server league (not much info what this is)

Is that right?

I will start with server identity first. Server identity isn’t something that can be easily detonated using a leaderboard, it isn’t just a name on a list. Server identity or more importantly pride is the result of shared feelings born from connections between players doing things day and night in the wvw, people want to protect those feelings.

However, in your approach, if server’s players are allowed to choose tiers base on their choice, that also means the players are spreading out. When players are spreading out, it won’t be that easy to build that connections and without it, we can’t develop feelings. Not to forget, servers are mashed together because of their colors. This means that there will a range of players from different servers playing side by side with you. The sense of server identity will become vague at that point.

Another issue will be the guild recruitment. Guild currently and in your suggestion has a common recruitment issue and that is the server issue. Guild only has few choices they can make; Get the person to transfer over, Pay for the transfer, Explicitly not recruit different server or Just recruit into roster and hope one day will be on the same side. Most guilds are unlikely to take the last option because it affects long term combat quality of the guilds. However, you stated that guild mates can select same tier to play with which kinda imply that they can play on same side even if their server are assigned different colors. Is that what it is or did I read it wrong?

The biggest problem with wvw right now is the return to the Alpine BLs. They’re too small and make blobbing almost a must.

From the release of HoT, until the return of ABLs, YB won almost every matchup. Not because of siege humping or all of the other things people are whining about, but because it took a heck of a lot longer for those 50 to 60 person blobs to respond and one-spam everything in their path.

If you want to make wvw more competitive, go back to DBLs, or put some more space in ABLs.

People want 15 to 30 person fights, not having their group of 20 constantly mowed down by 40 or 50 person blobs.

Hell, add in a diminished returns setup so that you get less rewards if there are more than 30 allies in a 2500 range, or something.

Kill the blobs and you’ll save WvW.

I prefer the desert borderlands because of their size. The Alpine borderland feels/is so much smaller that it’s almost claustrophobia inducing. DBL makes blobbing much less effective.

I am holding out hopes that you develop a third borderland so that each team is defending a different borderland. An Amazon-like setting with a large river running through it would be pretty nice.

Since the WvW team seems to be open to suggestions to make the game better and more enjoyable, I thought that I’d add my thoughts.

First, remove the server references from WvW. Draw upon history to utilize guild alliances. About a month before the beginning of a cycle (we’ll arbitrarily say three months), each guild leader declares allegiance, for their entire guild, to an alliance.
An alliance having numbers roughly equal to the average of the current linked server setup. So an alliance could be made up of a few very large guilds or many smaller ones, or any other combination, thereof.

To help with some of the lingering “server pride” stuff, you can give all of the worlds being defended by the alliances new names, again based on Tyrian history.

Eliminate the current tiers and have the cycle involve rotations of six worlds.

Finally, add another map. Keep desert borderlands, and enlarge alpine to a comparable size. This gives each borderland a distinct feel.
Enable gliding, create anti-glide tactics.
Perhaps archers, or siege at objectives could gain a “sink” like attack to make it very difficult to fly into them in small groups.

Honestly, though, the best thing that you could do is to kill off blobbing by making it far less effective. Perhaps diminished returns, the more allies in the area the less rewards, or less damage.

How about removing kills entirely, except in the arena. If you are downed anywhere else in OS, you become invulnerable.

All that needs to be done to fix this situation is to incorporate a cool down on interrupts and stuns. I don’t think that they need to nerf anything else.

I’m sure this is the cause of the server issues.

Just a thought about the permanent mining tools…

I have a few of them, but find that I keep the Watchwork Mining Pick on my “active” character because of the sprockets.

I think it’d be a great idea for the others to give you can chance for theme related mats. The molten pick could give you a chance to get molten shards or such.

Please fix the “Target Closest Enemy” so that it doesn’t target neutral (yellow) items, especially when there are actual enemies closer. I don’t know if words can relate how frustrating it is to enter combat in WvW and target the dang wall or siege instead of the actual enemy.

Another issue is line of sight for Thief shortbow 5 skill and for stealing. I was unable to steal from someone tonight because there was a small bump between us at a range of less than 400. It is also frustrating when you are moving through an open field area and are unable to Blink across an area that looks to be smooth level ground. The low area under Hills Keep is really bad for this.

Thanks,

“I hate condis” threads always seem to revolve a few points…
1. The player who insists that zerker is and should be the only meta…moar power!
2. The player who refuses to actually play a “realistic” or “smart” build with some condi removal skills.
3. The player who doesn’t understand that vitality is your offset against condis, allowing you to endure more DoT.

Seriously, if you believe that a condi build is OP compared to a power build…seek help, because you, apparently, haven’t been on the receiving end of being insta-melted by a mantras power mesmer.

I have both of my accounts set up so that C causes me to target the nearest enemy. However, this often targets neutral wildlife, or structures and/or walls in wvw.

It just gets really frustrating when I am trying to target the enemy (red name) in front of me and end up targeting whatever’s closest at hand.

Thanks.

There were some really good ideas in this thread for tweaks. If you remove the white swords, please add a trick or trap that can compensate, or add a defensive upgrade that will ping a warning when gates at 50% or so.
Possibly tweak the NPC defenders to offer a bit more resistance to blobs.
Make better use of racial story elements from pve. Asura are technological geniuses (they’ll even tell you that), so why not have Asuran Laser Defense Penetration Devices (remotely controlled laser rams), or Charr Gate Destroyers (steam powered gate chain saws – you build them and then feed them fire wood like the booster bonfires). More mobile siege (Charr tanks, Norn dolyak-mounted turrets).
How about more WvW mastery skills? Add a step to build mastery that increases the defense rating of siege (like the Engineer trait for turrets).
Please get rid of rallying off of wildlife, unless that creature is what downed you.
Just some additional thoughts.

Something that doesn’t really change the current scoring system, but will alter the difficulty of taking objectives would be to establish a few degrees of “outmanned”.

One would be local (maybe range 2400) other would be map-wide. Outmanned could cause upgrade of NPCs, elite guards instead of veterans, or even champion guards based on how many attackers are present compared to defenders.

I think it would be a nice change to make the three borderland maps different from each other. Kinda freshen up wvw a bit.

Tired of being lost in the blob? being told how you should play? Tired of toxic environments with guilds spending as much time fighting each other as they are fighting the enemy?

Looking to move up?

Take a look at Devona’s Rest.

DR has risen from being the 23rd ranked server a few months ago to 11th (10/5/14) on the strength of our guilds and leaders.

DR is still one of the lower population servers, but is a WvW beast considering our size. Join us.

John Corpening.9847:

You guys beat me to it. After last week’s positive discussion on siege trolls I wanted to bring up the topic of population imbalance and ideas that you have on it.

There are a couple of ideas already going in this thread:

• population caps
• merge servers
• Battle Groups

I’d like to join in this brainstorm with some questions on these. For merging servers, how do we determine who gets merged? Where would we merge them to? How do we maintain any sort of world pride or identity they have? How do we handle potentially merging with your mortal enemies?

Thanks,
John

I’ve thought, for a while, that the best way to handle a server merger would be cut the number of servers to 18 and have two leagues of 9. You could take the bottom six servers and merger them with the next six servers, inversely. So 18 would merge with 19, 17 and 20, and so on.
You could even do this with a tournament to determine rankings and, temporarily, reduce the number allowed into maps for the length of the tournament to allow an even playing field.

Another thought that would help to truly balance the server pops would be to move accounts that have been inactive for a few months, or so, into an account limbo where they’d have to select a new server when they came back.
With megaserver, there’s no reason for trial accounts to have to pick a server and take a server spot until they purchase the game.