My suggestions:
– Keep contested state (with white swords), but show it only if wall or gate take some considerable damage, like 3-5%. It is for prevent one-man-contesters like thief who can contest full EBG side in 1 min. Run from spawn to fight Stonemist or enemy Keep is not funny (game is all about fun, isn’t it?).
– Remove depends of capture time based of numbers of players in ring. 80 players must cap object like 1. Best fights always for objects.
– Make WvW reward tracks like your make it for sPvP. Your can also give t(n+1) server reward bonus (like +15% for track progression) for beating t(n) server. But this rewards must be based on individual player efficiency (count kills/captured objects for the week) rather than server efficiency, if your want really increase WvW population.
– Make rewards for scouting towers. Only for really scouting rather than afking in tower/keep. How make it? I dont know. But f.e. ppl on map can “report” one man as commander and when he got stack he can “report” some players as scouts. Just an idea.
Also 70% map populations depends on the presence on it of good commander. My server can have 80-90 ppl queue on EBG in pre-prime time if there one of popular server commanders, and no queue at the same time the next day if there is no commander. So, your should make game interesting for commanders, but the reality is that most of good popular commanders is bored and not command anymore. It because they play on same 2 maps 2 years with the same mechanics – it really boring.
Your really should think about maps generate for each matchup and add new mechanics. It may be underwater keeps & battles, or special golems which effective versus players zerg, or moving waypoints like ships.
