Guild Wars 2

titanlectro.5029:

PabbyGaul.9682:

Apparently, there aren’t any ecologists that play/program in this game.

The slow polarization of WvW servers is inevitable because the system doesn’t mimic reality and is being played by real people. There is NO incentive to move to lower populated areas because right now More Population = More Kills = More Rewards. Its not rocket science…….its ecology.

Scale Magic Find, Drop Rates and Experience based on simulating a limited resource (Bags) rather than an infinite one (because its computer game) and the problem solves itself.

The result would be that high population servers have a severely impaired Magic Find, Drop rate, and Experience bonus in WvW. WHY?….Because in reality bags don’t drop out of thin air, they are a limited resource. So if there’s only a thousand bags to be had, I would much rather be after them with only 50 ppl rather than 2000. Making these stat bonuses inversely proportional to population mimics the reality that when you have lots and lots of people good stuff is harder to find. Exp would scale also because fighting on lower populations is simply more challenging. If it wasn’t people wouldn’t be leaving. If yer always the underdog why shouldn’t their efforts be considered more difficult? Isnt experience related to the difficulty of the task…ect.

So….the solution is really simple. Limit rewards in a way that mimics the consequences of actual population size.

The details of this idea were already submitted via Adopt-A-Dev. Would welcome some criticism.

This is perfectly inline with my analysis also.
(for reference :https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Solution-to-fix-the-population-imbalance/4438581)

I propose a test! Lets give this idea a try for a few months.

This is one of the least disruptive ideas. It will not break server communities or server coordination or large group combat or any of that stuff. It is not overly complicated. If it works, then we can be done with all of these crazy “remake everything about WvW” ideas. If it doesn’t work, then there is nothing stopping Anet from doing something more drastic later.

This idea has a lot of potential benefits, and very few risks. Most of these other ideas come with huge risks and sacrifices (including the one Anet proposed); some might even completely ruin WvW and turn it into EotM. Before we try anything drastic, lets give this simple but powerful tweak a try.

His suggestion is the Outmanned buff by another name. Look how well that works as incentive to move to an Outmanned map (i.e. it doesn’t). Scale it to server size. Personallly, I don’t see it having the desired effect.

It could also be abused by the “server riding” effect where swathes of people transfer to a low server and ride it up the league, then repeat.

iN A GOOD PLACE!!!111

Guardian has loads of mobility: Save Yourselves + Retreat + Staff #3 + GS leap + Judge’s Intervention.

Little acknowledged fact:
PvP problems with the class aren’t the same as WvW problems with the class.

Why do you think there are three sides instead of two? It’s not random.

Working as intended, nothing to see here. Move on, move on.

The disabler timer should be longer when the outmanned buff is up.

This thread is full of kittens.

mtpelion.4562:

Svarty.8019:

Dismantle is stupid. What if someone finds a clever spot to put siege and other people think it’s no good?

I vote this idea down.

Then that someone should either stay in his siege and prove it is clever or tell people why it is clever in order to dissuade them from dismantling.

You’d be surprised how many “problems” exist when you refuse to communicate with people.

I agree that lack of communication causes problems, but your proposed solutions to the dilemma of deconstruction are not convincing. Imagine if someone put up their clever siege and then had to go to help an ailing relative with a trip to the lavatory or serve dinner to their annoying, ungrateful children. I feel that now that we have thought through the myriad problems with the deconstruction concept, we have proven it to be an unfeasible solution to the rare but irksome siege troll botheration.

Exeon.4358:

For EU besides Baruch Bay(poor guys, now their up against #1 and #2 at the same time while being #6?) all matches are fairly even this week

Nope. Gunnars have Piken again, but I think we might learn a lesson from last week and tank this week so we don’t get them next week.

Xillllix.3485:

Hamster.4861:

Server being full has nothing to do with WvW. It’s EVERYONE. It has more to do with allocating server resources than anything else.

l2 get your PvE population into WvW like Yaks Bend does and you’ll do just fine.

Yeah but what’s the point of this with megaservers? Shouldn’t transferring be influenced by WvW population only?

^^ THis.

One way to get populations uncapped might be to shuffle non-WvW players around a bit.

testpig.5018:

DAOC did nothing to stop population imbalance.. however, they solved the problem with relics..

The server that controlled the most relics would have less NPCS available to guard the relics, thus allowing the underpopulated realm easier access at retaking them

Note: Easier but never easy. Relic keep guards were absolutely lethal and had to be pulled very carefully and a few at a time (but they stayed dead for ages).

Judging by this video, they nerfed the guards a lot as the game got older: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpPE3rTcXIA

What a steaming pile of gibberish, bunk and bilge!

When servers tank, that is rigging the tournament. Double-teaming is perfectly valid within the context of the three-way battle. If you (as a server) don’t like it, perhaps you should work on your (collective) charisma and persuasion!

It seems every week’s matchups are a joke, and the joke is on YOU for playing! Hahaha!

Avadore.4196:

DAOC had no AOE cap and had long duration crowd controls that a small group (8 man) could take out large forces. It was fun and the imbalance was not as a big of a deal.

Don’t try to rewrite history. These long duration clipping-range AoE mez/stuns were the bane of the game and ruined the fun for many as they stood there looking stupid while an 8-man group used /assist macros to pick them off one by one or massive PBAoE spam to kill them as a group. This was horrible and unfun.

Anyway, back on topic…

As others have said here, DAoC was famous for “alarm clock raids” (yes, that’s a link to the official forum for DAoC EU).

The reason that alarm clock raids had to be planned was the extremely high level of guards at the relic keeps. These took a lot of killing and you didn’t need too many players to help them in order to wipe the relic raid – so most raids were either at night time or a big surprise and involved a lot of meticulous planning to pull off.

In short: YES! The lesson is to have VERY powerful NPCs guarding the most important structures.

BUT, it wouldn’t work in GW2 because it took weeks of planning and there is a reset every week in GW2.

Of course, in other aspects of the game: smaller keeps, where the NPCs were weaker, one server would dominate the others.

Ultimately, I can only reiterate my suggestion again and hope someone realises how good it is:

• Give each server a set number of guards at any one time. This number should be as it is now- BUT when a side captures another objective, they have to lose some guards from other objectives to guard the new one. This way, the more things you have, the fewer guards at each thing. The fewer things you have, the more guards at each thing. This makes it more and more difficult for enemies to capture objectives.

• The above could be complimented with a concept of group toughness. Like with Skritt intelligence, the more guards you gather together, the tougher and more powerful each becomes. This should be a secondary measure if the above alone is not enough to slow the blob.

Also, waypoints didn’t exist.

I never thought I’d say this, but the 50 person cap for siege is too low. Blobs counter this by bringing loads more than 50.

That’s a nice easy change that can be done by changing one number in the code (I hope).

Rasudido.6734:

This is sad. Most posts are some made up complaint about how T1 servers should be the ones modified rather than the obvious where lower tier servers are the problem.

[..]
All of these can be reduced to what people really want : an active server population.

[..]
I understand any lower tier server players having pride and not wanting to move, but if your complaint is that population is an issue and you dont want to move to a server with better population? thats all on you guys not the other servers…

No.

Here is our situation: we have a server where at prime time we have very small queues and some maps with none.

We don’t want to have huge queues, we don’t want to have to fight against an enormous mapblob multiboxer and few-to-no random people. We LIKE our server, we LIKE our situation. We want to fight other servers in similar situations to our own. Not tanking blob-and-nightcap servers like Desolation and Piken Square.

We have an active population, we don’t want to move.

How about the idea of balancing uneven matches with uneven maps. This is just a take on how EB sides are different. Red can treb SM, Green is difficult to assault, etc.

Perhaps if they just emphasised this more we might get more even matches? It still means all sides have to field some players, so maybe not the best solution for things like nightcaps.

Grevender.9235:

oh, I am happy to see “dismantle” got some love ^-^
I think low populated servers may have troubles if the numbers required for voting are considered as fixed value: what about using proportional values?

Something like “in order to dismantle object A you need 10% of current map population to vote YES”

Dismantle is stupid. What if someone finds a clever spot to put siege and other people think it’s no good?

I vote this idea down.

Ulion.5476:

Wvw population does not reflect the pve population, so simply combining server would fix the wvw problem but create other issues. Eotm is an example of why server identity is important, no one cares to defend. It is just a karma train instead of how it was at the beginning and fun.

This is a really important point and, for me, emphasises an issue with the whole, transient “matchup” concept. Personally, I’d prefer if WvW had a more permanent aspect to them, rather than having immersion-breaking resets and “scores”. Still, this is all just conjecture now, we have what we have.

ntx.2976:

I would love to just see us embrace the megaserver reality completely. I believe we could have a set amount of teams and that guilds could chose to represent or express a preference for a team (they cant switch too often). Guilds then get sorted into these teams based on preferences while the guilds that dont express a choice get auto-sorted. The team allegiance can be changed by guild leaders but sorting is only done on resets, these new teams become the groups that go into WvW and have to assume team queues for BL’s. A downside to this is no server nationalism which help make the WvW experience enjoyable in my opinion, on the other hand the experience would be a lot more fluid and encourage guild loyalty and player movement, Oh we didnt get along this season ? your guild doesnt like how we command ? See you on the battle field we’ll be on purple team next season.

Also, player kills should count for a significantly larger portion of score. Skill>coverage

I agree with this almost completely, but in my opinion the downside outweighs the positives. This said, I do think the megaserver could have a place in a population balance solution.

I think the “always the same guys” aspect is extremely important – perhaps the colours can be turned into a pool of players… so you never end up fighting worldmates, but could end up in a different matchup? Obviously, all guilds always go together.

I believe this idea would go a long way towards making the game fun again:

• Incentivise two losers to attacking whoever is leading at any one time. It must be possible
• replace the ability to build waypoints with something else – golem siegeworks or something. Big blob thrive on mobility
• give each server a set number of guards at any one time. This number should be as it is now- BUT when a side captures another objective, they have to lose some guards from other objectives to guard the new one. This way, the more things you have, the fewer guards at each thing. The fewer things you have, the more guards at each thing. This makes it more and more difficult for enemies to capture objectives — The point I would make is that we haven’t seen how effective guards can be in massive numbers.

nekretaal.6485:

Then just do it during SEA/Overnight.

[..]redistribute according to active population.

So you mean determine a prime-time (by looking at # of active players) per timezone (US/EU/whatever) and raise the map caps during those hours? I quite like that idea.

I read it as combination of teams.

So you can face the same (dominating, blobby, nightcapping) server every match if the third server is someone else each time.

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.
[..]

Thanks,
John

Thank you for endorsing this with your redness, John. It shows that you are reacting to the concerns of many posters (i.e. you read the thread names) and means a lot to us (i.e. makes us believe there’s a chance of an improvement in the future).

Korgov.7645:

Skeletor.9360:

Serious solution…make people with outnumbered buff on them drop nothing and give no WvW experience. Why reward the problem? When you make it not worth it people will find the balance themselves.

That’s a great suggestion for improving the outnumbered buff.
[..]
A problem: You can no longer see the Outnumbered buff on your enemies. You would not be able to tell if your target yields loot or WXP.

This could be used as a pseudo version of the buff icon though:
“We got no loot, they must be outmanned”.

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Someone in wvw said something earlier that made a ridiculous amount of sense: if the Outnumbered buff pops, upgrade speed is increased by two or even three times, building siege requires less supply, and outnumbered players are automatically given swiftness for the remainder of the buff.

It just.. well.. it sounds like it could work. If you’ve got people outnumbering you by 3x, give the outnumbered a true buff that would allow them a chance to counter. Why not?

Why not? Because it will incentivise people to tell others to leave the border in order to get the buff. When you bear that in mind, you realise that the solution has to be unrelated to the Outmanned buff.

No kitten, Sherlock.

Please can we get some developer action (lawl, jk) discussion on Tanking at least?

darko.4501:

Outnumbered buff don’t need any changes.
And we don’t wanna end with a “plz more ppl leave so we can get the Outnumbered buff”
And when a server is outnumbered somewhere he can have 100 player somewhere else.

While I agree with the sentiment and intention of the original poster (i.e. fairer matchups and/or a way to level the playing field if the matchup isn’t fair), I fear that the proposed solution (“Outnumbered – Make It Useful”) is not a feasible method of achieving these goals for the reason darko highlights.

My proposed solution can be found HERE.

• Make it so you can’t contribute to building siege deployed by people on your blocked list.

• You’re welcome.

THE issue affecting WvW is not siege trolls. It’s bad MATCHUPS. We need to be discussing a replacement matchup system instead, imo.

If only Arenanet would look at the plethora of, “Crap Matchup”, threads and do a discussion on that instead of siege trolls (which are minimal-to-non-existant on some servers).

Widebody.5071:

Whats the master plan here? There has to be a motive behind all these things that’s happening right now, is not happening by chance.

The karma train speaks, mate. They want it to be easier to attack then defend (and given the map population caps, it already is).

I think there is a considerable amount of loot that should not be considered “Rare and valuable!”, including “ascended” empyreal fragments and “exotic” spoons ><.

What happened to items listed before the new TP was implemented? I can’t see those on my Selling History.

I can’t see any of the stuff I was selling on the trading post before 9 days ago.

Did my items all magically disappear?
Has this beautiful new Trading Post (thanks for that, but…) been a massive item/gold sink or do my items still exist somewhere?

• Please fix the bug where it eats 231 of my stack of 250 silver that I want to sell
• Where are all the old items I was selling? i.e. at least 2 pages of thick leather sections – I don’t see them in my current transactions.
• Please put the “Match your current selling price” option back

narwhalsbend.7059:

What next? Take my portals away?

I suspect so… and I wouldn’t protest, either!

Crapgame.6519:

Anyway – I know you know this. WvW are hard core and only here because we lack or yearn for a older meta of play called RvR. Sure, not everyone, but most of us I’d wager know what I’m talking about.

Let’s hope old MJ hasn’t bitten off more than he can chew, eh?

If this is the price you pay for freeness elsewhere, it’s comparatively tasteful and small. I’m very happy with this button and I wish to express my gratitude to Anet for keeping it classy.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Killface.1896:

RIP warrior time to QQ about necros or eles now

This. So much this.

And Thieves.

And Engies.

I’m glad we’ve dropped the trite “don’t nerf me, buff everybody else” rhetoric.

If hammer #2 was the same as elementalist’s lightning hammer #2, I’d use hammer.

Working as intended. It’s really good and well balanced. It gives thieves a tactical role in WvW and makes things lots more interesting.

If a blob is constantly thwarted, maybe they should try something else?

WGuardian.1028:

What will we have now:
Imune warrior goes in circle and contest it for ~10 ses and then dies. Next warrior goes in and contest structure for next ~10 sec and so on and so on… Ally’s blob arrive and we have epic fight.

Can you contest while invulnerable?

mango.9267:

Two unrelated bugs.

1) The asura summon 7-series racial elite is hitting upwards of 40k damage on players and 20k damage on paper gates.

That’s not a bug. It’s an improvement. This reflects true Asura superiority as the LORE dictates!

Working as intended, cry more noob etc.

Does anybody else have a problem where their finisher changes back to the default one?

Maybe Arenanet have been secretly working on a new res-grenade to give everybody this power!

.
.
.

Maybe not.

The game crashes all the time in big battles. I thought Arenanet would get that information in the form of “metrics”?

Fluffball.8307:

Sons.5493:

Fluffball.8307:

Sons.5493:

A well played power ranger can be a really pain in the kitten , with the RF and signet buff their survival has been increased.

60620 LB / GS with bark skin.

Said build has zero condi removal. Or presumably 1 per 10 seconds with SoR.

Last time i checked, my D/P thief didnt have any cond power, we talking power here folks.

Because people roam assuming they won’t face condis.

Because people can’t do anything about condis even if they did assume they were there.

Piken Square are already there.

Tanked from 2nd place in Gold to Silver league. This is now the least respected server EU. Even worse than Desolation.

Ariel Cor Leonis Inferi.2894:

Pinkamena Diane Pie.8054:

There are no plans to change WvW at all!

Confirmation: 6minute in, straight from the mouth of the D-man himself
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyWxsJU4InM&t=6m04s

Warning: Watching this video may make you leave GW2 earlier than you were expectin!

Yep… completely clueless

At 18 minutes he PROMISES a new map!

;) jk Anet, jk.

Bubi.7942:

Ever heard of contesting?

Contest vs blob = 0 seconds of contesting time.