Guild Wars 2

This is mainly for underpopulated servers (or times) vs highly populated servers. In previous matchups this included 7 out of 8, now it is still a majority. Even if you were to get the matchups perfect, there will still be high population vs lower population matches.

The goals here are simple:
1. Get people to transfer to lower population servers
2. Get them to fight and enjoy it

As it is now, there is a major snowball effect. The way the maps are designed, once everything is capped it is actually harder for anyone to take anything… if you grab a keep and set up siege it is already in range of 3 mortars and 2 trebs, and the high population side has plenty of people to man it. Forget the population odds against you, you might just be able to handle that (2 to one odds are definitely doable in this game)… as it stands now EVERYTHING else is. This is just the way it is designed. The first time you saw siege set up at a spawn should have been an eye opener.

This snowball effect is the reason that many do not go out from the “losing by score” side. Forget the population odds, everything else is stacked against them.

Let’s make it not stacked against them. Let’s make it closer to even. The “Outmanned Buff”, which is given to these servers every day in prime time, usually on all 4 maps, is one thing, but all it does is create PVE supply cap groups that try to avoid all fighting, until there are enough of them to make the buff go away. (I think it is greater than 3 to 1)

Here are some suggestions on how to fix it. (yes, you must tackle the server transfer issue in a way I have already outlined)

1. Allow supply camps to keep the buff longer for the underpopulated side, and shorter for the populated side.
2. Same with keep lords
3. Allow MUCH cheaper siege, how about 1/3 the cost? How about 1/6? (as it is with so few people we have only been using superior siege)
4. Allow underpopulated sides to carry more supply on default (this is the main limitation, how about 5 more? we already have 15 and it’s not enough)
5. Allow a higher badge drop % (to get people to transfer over, honestly in a target rich environment, badges aren’t a problem)
6. Allow faster guard respawn
7. Allow guard patrols from spawn point (that can be killed)
8. Make keep lords tougher for these sides
9. Allow for more guards
10. Allow for cheaper upgrades… take less supply and $, and happen faster

That would be a start.

The reason I say to do this soon is that you are actually losing people from these under populated servers… some groups / guilds transferred to these places for no queues and to make a difference, recruited a whole bunch of people (zerg guild), and then they have actually left due to the snowball effect! (You can confirm this by looking at the numbers) Taking more people than they brought!

I think they definitely need to communicate about this.

I think it’s funny people are actually defending someone (actually a whole large group) not being rendered… lol

(and yes, his thread is about people rendering)

Hilarious tactic exploiting horrible code in the game…

I have a brand new system that is fast as hell, and a 2 year old system that both run the game fine… in large fights the server is what limits me at the moment.

One small problem with being able to see your name is that they can /send you. (not sure if this works vs enemy server, but it definitely works across servers… and I have a feeling there are no checks)

I do miss the @ posts though. :P

In regards to server rotation, it seems they had to do this because there’s only one realm… server… then they made up a point system for some reason… so they are sort of in a box.

Titles would be nice.

First, it’s not medium population (take a look on prime time, hasn’t been medium since they added 3 new servers), but “server population” doesn’t mean much, “how many people you have in WvW” means more.

In NSPs last matchup it had 75-80% of the total force, also shown by queues. (Transfers can skew this up)

In this matchup it looks like it has about 50%+ looking at the previous queues. (We’ll see after the next queue release)

It appears to be another “bye”.

You can zerg in the worst way and win, that can’t be fun! I hope you get better matchups soon to put that organization to the test!

And also:

Faster supply generation
Faster Dolyaks
Cheaper (or free) siege (rams, arrow carts) (1 max)
More guards
Tougher guards
etc…

I’m sure I could come up with 20 more, then they could just pick a few and give them a go.

I have been in a fight with 150 people total in DAoC and able to play. They definitely all rendered. (server and client side)

After that it gets creepy… what would normally happen is the server would crash (around 200 – 250).

There were also just a few “instances” (about 4) to handle the RvR areas. Here in say Eternal… there are probably 50+.

In Planetside, I have been in a fight with almost 300 people in it and was playing just fine. The reason is “client side hit detection” and decent server code… if you know what that is… this is the reason FPSs generally support less people than an MMO… because the good ones don’t have it. Some of them are even so poorly coded that they DO have it AND support less people.

They’ve got some work to do here, and none of it is client related.

Odd… when I join I just go right in and play with all of my friends.

NSP, the worst ranked original server according to ANet.

At some point they will have to play someone with a population near them, is it happening now? Doesn’t look like it… but … who cares. :P

Looks like they get another “bye”?

If you aren’t in good gear, it will really chew you up.

The thief basically popped haste and and a venom (so that’s 2 of his skills!) that would stun you for 1s, then he spammed 2 pistol whips.

We had a group of 3 doing that to two of us and they got us one time, but all 3 died the next two times we met… all I had to do was keep my distance and whittle them down while they attempted to kill a good warrior.

They should fix this, it is a problem.

I’m at 5k+ kills, and I’ve gotten about 1200 badges.

I have probably left a few hundred on the ground.

Looks to be about 1 in 5, I’ll keep an eye on it.

Thieves get a signet that allows their next hit to do 50% bonus damage. It is primarily used on backstab, the biggest hit.

Call of Duty analogy, Kill streak rewards… I never understood why it should become easier for me to kill someone because I can kill them in the first place.

Relics in DAoC were specific to your realm, there were 6 total, one magic and one melee for each realm. Taking an enemy one would give a 10% bonus to that damage type, for a total of 20 if you had all 3.

These were permanent. If you took one the whole server would be spammed a message. If you succeeded in taking one to get the bonus, your keeps would become WEAKER (guards etc).

10 year old ideas, possibly superior. I’m sure we could make them better!

I’m happy to be doing RvR again… er… WvW (because it can’t be as complicated as DAoC, people might just complain).

If you’re moving you may not notice the bag appearing at your feet… sometimes we do a “bag run” and run back to pick up any that we missed. You might give that a try.

Low servers don’t have queues, unless there is a large guild joining up, which means 1 of the 4 zones will have a 2 min queue.

The only thing stopping people from all being on 3 or 4 servers (or even 1) is the queue. Lowering this somehow without thinking will make this happen.

Right now you can transfer immediately, you should get one immediate transfer every 24 hours. After that there should be a wait, this solves other problems.

Then they should say they are stopping ALL free transfers in a random time period, something like 2 to 7 days. They should also mention that they will not be able to get more people into wvw until well after that time.

This will force people and guilds to make a choice… one that is needed.

After a period, they could open up free transfers to certain servers with lower wvw populations for a small window. You get one transfer, then that’s it.

If you aren’t happy at that point, you got to make your own bed! yay!

No, I don’t care that you lose all of your guild stuff (we did) and we rebuilt it, it goes way fast at higher levels.

Ascleph.2147:

Tbh, the fact that NSP, a high pop world, is facing Kaineng and DR is an insult to them already.

This is actually what I thought as well.

But at least we have people to fight and no queues!

Your idea solves night time capping too, if you didn’t notice. (I don’t care either way)

There should be a minimum on it as well.

At this point though I think they made some pretty big mistakes on which servers are matched up, I’m willing to let them sort through it a bit without this sort of change.

TheAltarBoy, the queue time increasing is on purpose as part of the design.

Well, there are exploits (applications) that involve teleportation, since the server side does absolutely zero checks… but a large group all doing it? That’s not something I have seen and is probably not likely… There had to be some way in at some time… maybe they hid in a chain stealth field while everyone left after the door had dropped? etc?

You know what I’m talking about.

The MMO square box, peddled by WoW to the minds of many new MMOers, is dangerous to game evolution for sure.

Reviewers may very well be in that box.

I suppose you could chain stealth right by them! I’m used to guards seeing through stealth like every other game. I am corrected sir! (btw, they should fix that!)

What exactly were they exploiting?

Just using the magic movement button, that’s all! As far as what harm can come from instant teleportation… uh… really? (gee, I wonder if it was easy for him to get the whole map explored? yep…)

There were two from this guild. Couldn’t be too hard to find and ban, mezmer with all of the map explored (must be easy)? Then you could see who was logged and in group and ban them too! Easy cheesy!

:)

It’s simply population right now. Shiverpeaks has waaaaay more. (2 to 1 would be fine, 3 to 1 would be ok, I think 4 to 1 is where it gets iffy for DR) It is a higher pop server, and it is the lowest ranked of the original servers… There will be more guilds established simply because it was there from the beginning.

At some point they will have to fight another server with similar population and I fear they’ll be right back down here with the low pop ones. :/ (I’m not sure if that is funny or not!)

Luckily, we get more badges than they do and they have to wait in queues!

I think it will sort itself out though in the long run… they could also lower the caps depending on the numbers using a formula (as in, only allow a 2 to 1 etc, something along those lines)

gandhigonewild.3645:

I play on Kaineng and Devona’s Reach….its not even a matter of people organizing. Whenever we do organize a fairly big push to retake things we’re promptly zerged to death. Even if we do manage to hold them off they always take everything back over night. Your approach isn’t working for the least populated servers. People aren’t organizing in WvW here, they are leaving for better matched servers. If we continue to get stomped in every match up the servers will end up being ghost towns.

It’s simply population for us, the way they have matched up Northern Shiverpeaks against the two lowest population servers just means they believe they are the worst server out of all of them (the populated ones) that existed on release. I think that’s a pretty big insult…

They have roughly 80% of the people across the 4 zones and 3 servers. I bet we get 3x the badges though.

Depending on your class, you may not be able to do it alone against a zerg.

Kosta Pereira.5403:

And i hope they never return the exp gain to dolyak escorts or we will have people only doing that.

Ya, why do that when they could be fighting the grub!

They need to fix this to autoloot.

What I do is anytime I kill someone or I see that exp pop up, I mash the F key.

Rotto.2816:

I honestly feel like Devona’s Rest and Kaineg and maybe even Fergie all be smashed into one server. It’d give us the population to compete and solve the vicious cycle that is the last bracket.

uh… please no.

Fubuki.7162:

In contrast, on Kaineng you always have someone to fight. You always have resources to recapture. You never have to wait in queue. You guys showed last night that you have enough people to put up a good brawl, and there are definitely benefits to be earned when you do that.

This is correct and why we transferred a couple of weeks ago to another server. We would rather lose as a group than never play together… we end up fighting alot of people… I see it as more badges! Everyone else should remember you’ll always be fighting the other low pop servers too!

Also, the number 1 server wont stay that way for any amount of time. The queues dictate it!

I’ll salute you when I see you out there!

What you should really do is … Add 3 more new servers, Let everyone know that you will stop all free server transfers in one week (or two), to all servers but those.

Think about it, it will solve your problem. You can’t be expected to have 1k people per side on a match.

Also, I’m glad you are not going to “instance” a server vs server WvW zone. I’m glad you understand what that actually means in game terms.

Intigo.1653:

I understand the limitations in place, Mike, which is why I think you should focus on getting a few fairly simple things put in place while you focus on increasing the WvW cap and whatever else is on your plate to reduce queue times

What I would suggest is that you allow us access to a bit more information through the WvW interface. This also serves to make sure people don’t feel like they are “in the dark” when queuing for WvW.

This includes:

• An estimated timer and current position in the queue (You are 503 out of 975, ETA: 45m).
• A way to see the maps and current queues for all WvW maps through the WvW interface (B). It should be possible for us to see the status of the current maps so we have a better idea of where help is needed (instead of needing to ask someone in WvW to relay that for us). This part and the above would also serve to spread out the queues a bit as people will primarily queue for the maps with lower queues.
• Fix the queuing bug, obviously, but giving us access to a bit more information would also allow people to more easily notice if they’re bugged (“Why am I still in the same position I was in 30 minutes ago? Maybe my queue is bugged”).

I can see where you are coming from when you ask people to consider moving their guild to another server. You have to understand that people may be hesitant to do that, though, with all the influence and people they leave behind. Perhaps you guys could offer some sort of incentive?

• A way for them to bring over the upgrades they’ve earned on another server?

• An influence boost for guilds transferring?

It’s hard for guilds to convince members to leave behind a server they’ve worked hard on when their upgrades are already pretty high (and they may want to focus on WvW now, which might lead to them earning a bit less guild influence than they did while levelling).

Just a few thoughts.

If they give bonuses now for moving, they need to give more bonuses to the pioneers, the guilds that moved a long time ago and lost all of their stuff.

And if you WvW in a guild group, you get more influence than anything else I have found.

mcl.9240:

It has nothing to do with drivers, or anything client-side. It’s a server-side optimization they did on or around 9/1 to help alleviate strain on the servers, possibly in conjunction with raising the max WvWvW player cap.

This is it, everyone should re-read this over and over who is suggesting drivers or invis potions… and if you can’t see it happening, it’s just because you aren’t aware of your surroundings… as you play more, you’ll notice it.

Melphina.9035:

Esaam.9042:

I do agree. Several times, against quit big enemies gathering, I spent my whole fighting by trying to kill people I did not see by using the tab key. In one occasion, after opening a keep gate, we rushed in because the courtyard was “clean”, only to be almost insta killed by aoe 3 secondes later and having a HUGE crowd poping in from of me 20 seconds later.

Eventhough it was far from perfect, the AION system of removing models but leaving the “tags” is better than seeing nothing at all.

I like the DAoC system. Draw them all andkittenthe FPS

I prefer this too, right now it’s not render and leave my video card picking its nose.

The problem they are having is actually instancing. They are going to have to work on it.

hobbes.4201:

bwuki.2175:

I agree, I love the Shortbow, but when it comes to damaging, I have to take P/P over it.

This is a true statement for single target (unless you’re traited for bouncing bullets). I predominately use p/p. I read a post on another thread that said that the 1 attack on shortbow is almost equal to unload. this is totally bogus. it’s not even close to the truth unless you have very under leveled pistols. But, because of SBs aoe uses, even if single target damage is not as high, you will probably bring down more mobs faster rather than a quick individual kill.

Wait until you have just 2 targets, and the bounce hits the first guy twice. :P (3 times, and then they are downed) It probably takes as long as the pistol unload. Imagine when haste goes off during this time? hmm…

I chuckle when I see a P/P thief in WvW personally… but to each their own! It’s hard to get rid of those bleeds from the pistols I bet.

AcidicVision.5498:

Do you have the trait specced that causes steal to do damage? That treats the steal as an attack and will break stealth.

This needs to be fixed.

Bazeleel.8219:

Just want to point this out. ANY build that uses the super gimiky build of HS spams or full on crt has zero dodge and maybe 15k HP, not to mention less then 910 armor.

If you seriously cant kill that…then GW2 might be too hard for you.

Same with warrior Blades spec, if you cant dodge their when you see it coming, you have almost 3 seconds to get out of the way, then again GW2 might be too hard for you.

Screaming “please nerf the class cannon build” is so pointless.

Actually, you will have even less than that as a thief… with no orbs and crit / precision gear, you will not even have 11k hp. (I think it is around 10.6k)

You can heartseeker 3 times with 10 initiative, or 4 times with 13. If you have 13, your damage is not as high as it could be.

So, premise is flawed… but we can still discuss I’m sure. With what you’re mentioning, I think a thief auto attack may give you alot of problems.

Sounds like a bug!

I am guessing you are using the exchange rate (RL) to believe one thing is more valuable than the other?

Even if so there are many more expenses to doing business in most parts of Europe, such as credit card fraud etc… saying “taxes” is a bit of a cop out, “expenses” would be a much better word.

bobfigo.6479:

Hi,

In my game I could destroy all three towers, Spoiler...Then cleared the beach but then my quest log does not update anymore.

This is what happens to me.

When MMOs evolve, they will not have level (again). Here they have done a cross breed of a couple of systems, and it turns out the “best so far”. It can be better, but I don’t think people with an absolute definition of what a level is and what you “must” be able to do with it will let it happen. I’m just saying you may want to think outside of the box.