Guild Wars 2

The last thing WvW needs is to add another set of calculations onto the server.

Earlywood.7438:

I personally think its in bad taste for Anet to claim things in wvw, or even tag up for that matter. I think that more veteran players understand they are playing like everyone else and being fair, but I also know a lot of people that feel the exact opposite and believe the other servers are getting help from the developers.

Don’t get me wrong, its good to see them playing their own game. However, unless you see them on all servers, it gives a bad impression and doesn’t look like they are promoting a fair atmosphere in WvW. While we all have our own opinions about what fair is, I would find in hard to believe in WvW’s current state that Anet claiming objectives is bringing in more players then its pushing away.

It should be company policy that Anet tag not appear in matches on winning sides of blowout matches.

If Anet tag was on losing sides of blowout matches then they could see firsthand the problems with WvW. Why players are leaving and why it’s difficult to get new players into WvW.

Funny, TC players complaining of facing blobs that are 2x-4x greater but when they do the same to T2 it’s all good.

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

Diku.4620:

Server Guesting should be re-purposed & tailored for WvW to use for creating player driven Match-Ups.

Let players stack servers as much as they want, but allow them to go to any server where the action is…with weekly limits on which server & how many servers that they are allowed to fight on.

Players don’t go where the “action” is, they go to where the easy wins are. You can’t let the players choose where they want to play, they will choose the easy way most of the time.

morrolan.9608:

joneirikb.7506:

They’ve said before (at least couple of times) that they count “man hours in WvW”, so basically how much time is spent from multiple people. If 100 people spend 1 hours each its’ 100 man hours, if 10 persons spends 10 hours each it’s 100 man hours. Or something similar (they never explain it in detail).

They’ve never said anything like that AFAIK. They have said players that are only in WvW for a short time won’t be counted as part of the population. The implication being that once a player passes that threshold of time or WvW activity they are counted as part of the population and treated the same as someone who spends a lot more time in WvW. This is why JQ kept getting locked, they have a lot of casual players who spend short amounts of time in WvW in comparison to other servers like Maguuma which is primarily composed of players who spend large amounts of time in WvW.

Anet has only ever said that populations are based upon an Activity Level, which has never been defined. This activity level is averaged over time, which has said to be longer than a week. That’s all that has been said about population.

But remember, Anet opened up BG, saying that they had less players than JQ or even the T4 link of CD and 2-3 other servers. I don’t believe for a second that Anet knows the accurate “activity level” of servers.

When has locking servers balanced T1?

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

For population balance reasons, we’ve lowered the population thresholds for a world to be considered ‘Full’. This is to keep the population disparity between high pop and low pop servers more similar.

What are you going to do to lower the disparity between the full threshold and the largest pop servers?

1. Population balance. Linking didn’t work. Locking servers didn’t work. Anet needs to either lower map caps, close maps, force 2v1 so that stack to win isn’t the meta anymore.

2. Skill balance. The reason for the decline lately is the fact that lower numbers cannot win against higher numbers. Damage mitigation needs to go. You should have to actively heal and cleanse to show you have some skill in WvW. Make it fun to play WvW when you are outnumbered.

3. Rewards. I don’t mean higher rewards for the stacked. I mean rewards for those that play a long time. More rewards for those that are outmanned. Rewards that can be used in PvE that will encourage PvE players to join WvW. Make EotM rewards take way longer than WvW rewards.

4. Treat WvW like it is core to GW2. If WvW is core to GW2 then have better communication with the players on the forums, fix known bugs with the maps quickly to show us that you treat WvW as core to GW2. Stop shifting WvW resources to the next PvE release so that only the easy and quick fixes get released in WvW. Invest in WvW. Fix the lag issues. If you can’t fix lag when it’s 80v80, but it works good enough when it’s 50v50 then change the map cap to 50. Of course you could look at changing the skills and skill effects so that lag happens less in WvW.

5. Make me want to play WvW again.

Tournament cycle:

1. Anet announces tournament.
2. Two weeks before tournament, servers buy guilds. Glicko rating of servers gaining and losing players doesn’t adjust quickly enough to reflect new population.
3. Tournament starts and winning servers win, losing servers lose. There are no upsets ( the only exception was season two 2v1 against BG)
4. After the tournament ends the servers de-stabilize again as there are players who transfer off while others stop playing, leaving less players in WvW after the tournament than before the tournament.

Lets have another tournament!

DeceiverX.8361:

Gwaihir.1745:

DeceiverX.8361:

Rhego.6590:

What?? Why are we talking about builds lol… I asked which server will be best for finding fights..

You asked for zerg-busting, not zerging. Those are two very different things, and the former depends heavily on the meta. Right now, there is no countering the existing meta with fewer players pretty much regardless of how good you actually are. The professions have been changed in ways where zerg-busting (a build-dependent area of the game) no longer exists, because there’s currently no way to shut down larger groups of players without just having more numbers, because the dominant builds do not have any means of getting shut down.

That still was never requested nor brought up. And self supportive teams can still take down larger groups, ZEN on eu I think has some good vids up. Heck me and 2 of my friends mesing around contested an ebg keep and sat on the spawn killing them as they rolled in until around 12-14 guys had showed up. Was fun, messing around in completely off the meta builds but people who know how to play together are still stronger.

I gave an answer and got criticized for saying none because the game-state doesn’t allow for what the OP wants right now. Would you lie or give a bad answer to someone who came in asking about a frontline-one-push thief build for T1 zerg fights rather than saying there is none?

Killing 14 unorganized pugs (probably with blob-oriented builds) at spawn is not zerg busting. A zerg these days pushes closer to 30-50 in most tiers in NA.

If OP wants to go zerg busting he has to look for a pugmander that has more than 20 players and they have to be bad players.

That should narrow the server and time choices down to a few.

Swamurabi.7890:

from a red post in the thread Whens the next WvW tournament?

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Our primary motivation for avoiding running another tournament, is that at the end of every tournament we saw a permanent dip in the number of players playing WvW. Presumably this was due to players burning themselves out during the tournament.

However, we can still run a poll to see if the majority of the community wants another 4 week tournament, even if it might be bad for the long term WvW population numbers. Though even if ‘running another tournament’ won the poll, we’d probably hold off until we get the scoring updates in.

At this point I’d vote for another tournament just so WvW dies even faster than it is now.

Stackgate>Hibergate>Buygate==>Stackgate

Ahh, the never ending cycle of BG. At least until there’s no more players to transfer.

Zok.4956:

SkylightMoon.2098:

The core problems have never been fixed. Score, population, and rewards. Its a mode that has been flawed from its inception because there has never been any incentive to win a match, because population dictates match. That also means you cant reward winners of the match.

If that could be fixed it would also be good.

In a competitive game, even in real world sport, the player count is important and that is why the number of players is fixed in a sports team and reducing the player count of one team is used as a penalty.

But WvWvW ist a 24/7 game mode where the player count is not fixed. It has only a maximum player cap per map (which is between 60 and 100 maybe). So “equal numbers of players” happens only at times, where a map has reached its maximum players/cap.

That is a problem that can not be fixed for WvWvW and as a result, WvWvW will never be a competetive game mode like a 5v5 or maybe a 10v10. And it will never be “fair”. It was never intended to be “fair”. Because it is not WvW but WvWvW.

I think A-net should not try to make the game mode or matches more “fair” but should find other ways to make it more fun for (most of the) players. That is also not easy because “fun” is different for different players.

The reason why WvW is dying faster now is that it is no longer fun for the losing sides.

As a WvW veteran I can honestly say that EotM is more fun than WvW right now.

I might get an infraction for this but whatever….

#FreeHabib2017

displayname.8315:

Why can’t they at least have major events similar to a tournament?

The last tourney they did a really good job of making a daily reward event with the achievements and a week long achievement goal.

I know the answer is b/c they gave up on WvW to “focus on the successful parts of the game”. But still it sad.

This is why,

Two weeks before a tournament there’s a massive transfer of players hoping to bandwagon to the winning server, which leaves their former server with less population/coverage for where they are ranked. This is Anet’s fault for not adjusting a server’s glicko rating when the get/lose veteran players. The rest of the server spends the tournament getting rolled because they just can’t compete with the numbers that are left.

After the tournament is over, the huge spike in players driven by rewards known as PvE players leave, as well as veteran WvW players who’ve finally had it with Anet not caring about WvW because why would anyone have any tournament where the chances of winning weren’t determined by skill.

And there’s still people that want another tournament. Some of you are just clueless about what’s going on in WvW.

Spurnshadow.3678:

Guys,

You can’t look at past matches and place this new scoring system on it to see what the difference is. The reason is peoples behavior and strategies will change. The behavior in past matches are based on a 321 scoring system. Strategy will be totally different in a 211 system

It will take time for the new strategies to work themselves out, but a strategy of capture and hold by the first server will probably be the dominant one. When the first server has a population advantage they will attack, when they have even or less they’ll play defensive.

This may lead to more players leaving because they will tire of PvS(iege), or more likely SvP.

This could be the end of the PPK style of play.

displayname.8315:

Swamurabi.7890:

Yeah, in my match the first place server has won all but one skirmish.

Here’s a better idea, balance the population and you will have a better WvW for all.

P.S. My server has won only one skirmish this match, the other server has zero wins.

That would make you a lock for 2nd place congrats, not that winning 1st or 2nd means anything. If your server is super dead like most you should find somewhere better to play.

The linkage im on has taken 2nd place in T1 NA for awhile now. Don’t really care tho as long as there’s stuff happening when I log in, which usually there is.

I’ve been playing EotM lately just to get the same feeling as being on an overstacked server.

I just get the feeling that because of the population and coverage difference in NA T2 that even with a 2v1, the gameplay just won’t be as fun because TC’s, or whoever is the fourth server’s coverage will eventually make all their structures T3 and fully sieged up and the other two servers just won’t have desire to throw themselves at an unwinnable encounter.

After all, if SBI/FA can’t defend their side of the map from TC, how are they going to defend their siege attacking one of TC’s structures?

If Anet won’t balance population and scoring doesn’t fix things, is some sort of supply handicap next?

We should just change the scoring to infinity+1/infinity/infinity-1. That way we can all say we tied because mathematically they are all equal.

from a red post in the thread Whens the next WvW tournament?

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Our primary motivation for avoiding running another tournament, is that at the end of every tournament we saw a permanent dip in the number of players playing WvW. Presumably this was due to players burning themselves out during the tournament.

However, we can still run a poll to see if the majority of the community wants another 4 week tournament, even if it might be bad for the long term WvW population numbers. Though even if ‘running another tournament’ won the poll, we’d probably hold off until we get the scoring updates in.

displayname.8315:

Funny how everyone just assumes their server will not win a single skirmish. Here’s an idea WIN a skirmish or two and you will earn more points…

Yeah, in my match the first place server has won all but one skirmish.

Here’s a better idea, balance the population and you will have a better WvW for all.

P.S. My server has won only one skirmish this match, the other server has zero wins.

Thea Cherry.6327:

What is there to like? It basiclly kills the competiveness of this system even more.

The Number One server is a save number one while second and third dont give a kitten about the MU.

This will draw even more players away from this gamemode/game.

At this time, BG leads Mag by 15 vp, under the new scoring they’d be leading by only 4. How is a 15 point gap more competitive than a 4 point gap? The T3 match is going to go down to Friday. A great match. Wish I was there.

As for TC/FA/SBI, do you really, I mean REALLY, think that FA or SBI cares about this matchup? Or the next one, or the next one, or the next one? Do you think that ANY change to the scoring will change the outcome? The same can be said for T4.

What’s going to take the fun out of the lopsided matchups is that the number one server who has better coverage and population, will now start to siege up their structures and even camps to YB levels and beyond.

What’s better about this is that instead of the first place server deciding who finishes second or third, the third place server can decide who finishes first. Does the second place server really want to hit the third place server? This could make for more interesting map politics.

Spurnshadow.3678:

I’ve found most of the recent changes to WvW have been good, and have made many posts saying so. This one is flat out horrible.

Awarding 1 point for 2nd and 3rd will offer no incentive for competition. One server could just not play and have no negative consequence. What’s worse, it take a huge amount of strategic value away from the game, trying to push one server down to 3rd, or help another up to 2nd, or whatever, in order to try to get the skirmish placement one wants.

As there will be no difference between 2nd and 3rd, this will only incentivise constant 2v1s against whichever server is placing 1st. This will be no fun for the 1st place server. WvW is supposed to be a 3 way matchmaking system, not 1v1.

So how would TC/SBI/FA be any better if there was a 2v1 against TC?

Spurnshadow.3678:

If this has been done in order to keep the matches closer together, then I don’t understand why y’all haven’t implemented a system I suggested when the skirmish system was implemented. The ratio between 1, 2, and 3 are the largest you can get among whole numbers. Instead, award 3, 4, and 5. This would lower the ratio and make it so there is still a close match by the end of the week, unless the 3rd server is just really outmatched.

Do you REALLY think that a scoring change will make the TC/SBI/FA match any better?

Spurnshadow.3678:

If you are trying to make outmatched servers more competitive, then this is no way to solve the problem. It’s just a gimmick. Outmatched servers need people and organization, not some scoring gimmick.

So how many guilds is BG going to give to SBI/FA to make for a better match? Yeah, thought so.

Spurnshadow.3678:

The other dramatic effect this will have on WvW is how it will effect volitility in glicko. Since servers will now be very close together in score, there will be less gains/losses in glicko score. This means that servers will have a much more difficult time trying to move up or down the rankings. This will also lessen the variety of matches as servers will remain further apart in scoring, thereby lessening the odds of a random tier jump.

The 3/2/1 scoring system has been shown to increase the score between the first and third servers, which is why you see the wall in NA between T1 and T2 gone. Increased volatility index has mixed T1 and T2 servers in matches which has added more variety in the matches, not less.

Spurnshadow.3678:

It says in the patch notes that this was something the players wanted. Sorry, I never remember this topic being brought up.

Seriously, how can you guys be so shortsighted. It really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how this is going to change things.

Well, scoring changes was asked for by the players and by poll results. As for fixing WvW we all know that Anet has to balance the sides, not the players, because the players want easy wins. That’s why when BG was re-opened there was a rush of players/guilds, or was it because of the great community that BG has.

trueanimus.4085:

I dont think ppk needs to be increased simply because of the amount of players the top 3 tiers have atm. If they did that, there would be no way to win against a large server if your even slightly outnumbered.

What needs to be done, is finding a way to balance the population across servers or allow only a set number into wvw (far lower than it is now) because , for example, Tarnished coast has a problem now queing even 2 maps on reset and most of the week, we are outnumbered on all maps. We might have around 40 on map and BG and JQ have several blobs of 40+ running around capping everything.

This has been a problem for far too long… opening already full servers in tier 1 (TC is always between tier 1 and 2 even with low population) while servers like TC with low wvw population struggle to maintain even a prime time presence.

I personally wouldnt mind sitting in que for a while if it meant there would be equal or even close to equal number fights on all maps.

How many guilds is TC willing to give up to have at least a 9 server rotation?

Thought so. You should play on SBI/FA and lower servers, you might change your idea about what low population is.

Chaba.5410:

Reh.5986:

If your server is dumb enough to feed kills to the bigger server…

… you should transfer to the bigger server especially if your personal KDR is high. No sense getting yourself worked up over trying to carry everyone else.

So everyone that is on a lower pop/lower coverage server should only sit in towers and use seige, don’t want to feed that PPK by going outside the walls.

Let’s turn NA WvW into 4 blob servers and 8 versions of YB.

Sad to say but PPT allows for more varied playstyle than PPK.

Westenev.5289:

Swamurabi.7890:

How about in order to discourage stacking, you offer more tickets for finishing 3rd, less for second and few for first.

But then wouldn’t it just be a fight to see who is the most inactive?

If anything, second place should probably be the most lucratively rewarded (if we’re following this train of logic). Even then, the only people who would stand to gain by actually doing anything would be the 3rd place server.

Until Anet figures out how to balance matches, how about you make your rewards scale with your participation, but the losing side still gets bigger rewards.

The BIGGEST problem with WvW is BALANCE. Always has been. You all want to reward the overpopulated, overcoveraged and overstacked. Well we’ve seen years of this garbage.

You want to kill WvW faster than it’s dying right now? Take a look at T2 NA. TC this week and JQ last week won over 90% of the skirmishes.

What incentive is there currently to transfer to SBI or FA? NONE
After you reward the winner there will be even less incentive to join them. Way to kill off the blue and red servers in every tier.
Players were stacking before there were any rewards, adding rewards will make it worse.

Balance first, rewards afterwards.

My first thought was “what’s a commander”?

But having followed a tag or two, it’s not easy. Just try playing commander once, mute yourself and speak like you were a commander.

How many times do you lose your thought? Get tongue tied? Forget directions? Lose track of skill cooldowns? Lose track of enemy skill cooldowns. Don’t know where to go next? Can’t read chat, type in chat (game and TS), play and speak at the same time?

How about in order to discourage stacking, you offer more tickets for finishing 3rd, less for second and few for first.

The only rotation in NA is between the 3rd and 4th servers going up to T1 after winning 90% of the skirmishes in T2. The rotation before BG was open was because of a tweak to the volatility. The 5th and 6th servers are sooooooo far below the top four the T2 NA matchup will be the worst in WvW for some time, because the top four servers want to overstack to achieve balance with BG, rather than a 6 or 9 server rotation that would make WvW worth playing.

Eventually there will be only three top servers and everyone else will be used to fill the gap caused by retiring players

HoT with DBL and elite specializations, the return of alpine, linking servers and to a lesser extent, skirmish scoring, PPT and PPK changes have changed the way WvW has been played.

Exactly what kind of changes are you looking for? A third map? population balance?

It’s probably capped at 195, after all, Anet doesn’t want players to take advantage of the outmanned buff. You should AFK for a while and see if it stays at 195 or drops.

If it’s a mistake then we’ll probably get a patch saying there’s been a text change to the tooltip.

I’ll agree to increased PPK if you agree to map caps of SBI/FA/YB levels of participation.

I’d like to see legendary WvW armor/trinkets, which you can change stats at will, but one that only works in WvW.

If you did make it work in PvE I don’t know what would be worse.

The whining of the PvE players that think it’s “too hard to get”, " too much time to get", “why should I play WvW to get something for PvE” or…

All the PvE players flooding WvW to get their prize. Remember tournaments?

RodOfDeath.5247:

Close all those servers, including JQ.

Based upon how dominant JQ is against their opponents this week that doesn’t seem like a bad idea, but it won’t happen.

OP must have run into a guild doing an all ranged raid.

Anybody still do stuff like that?

while we’re at thinking of what type of weeks we should have:

Insert class not played in WvW______ contributes bonus points to score week.
Everyone can carry up to 100 supply week
Flipping ruins and sentries give 10x points week.
Flipping 80% of a map starts a timer that will close the map.
Increased damage from all falling traits week (remember the fun mesmers had?)

Nuzt.7894:

None of that matters to me, it does not affect me in any manner, if and when I complete a daily it’s as simple as “oh look I forgot I get stuff for doing stuff”. However, the OP seems to be the type of person that cares and so if what he/she says is true that completing dailies is more time consuming in WvW then it should be changed to fall in line with every other game mode for the sake of those who give 2 craps.

If nothing changes, I personally won’t even notice. The point is making it enjoyable for everyone and if Dailies are what some players play for then by all means change them to suit these people. It won’t affect those of us who do not care either way.

The problem with dailies only players in WvW is that they might give Anet a false sense of a server’s WvW population level. It’s just like crafters could take away spots of active WvW players on a map, and you don’t see crafting tables in WvW anymore.

How about making all tonics usable in WvW show all animations, a little quality check work for you, then just like finishers players can pick which tonic they want to use, or not, in WvW

Simple solution if you are running out of supply.

Take your EB map queue and go to OS
Have your home BL map queue get supply from your T3 keeps and transfer to EB
OS blob goes to home BL and resupplies.

This shouldn’t be too tough for a server with a great community.

I got infracted once for using the word “cancerous”. I replied to the infraction notice saying I was sorry for using cancerous to describe WvW, where by definition cancerous is the unwanted growth of cells. Since there wasn’t growth in WvW I then said I should have used the word “necrotizing” and the infraction was lifted.

RodOfDeath.5247:

I don’t think they have the staff or proper time to dedicate to the game mode so it’s treated as a “spare time” thing.

There are servers that still care and actually have server meetings 10 minutes before reset if community is still a thing to you. Other than that, the game mode is headed in a very poor direction unfortunately.

Some servers no longer have a community because it was bought by other overstacked servers. It’s not about the players caring anymore. For so long WvW has been for most servers like playing sPvP with less than 5 players. Sure you can win some battles and maybe even win a match but after a while it just isn’t fun anymore.

Oddgo.5423:

For clarification, does this mean that if you are transformed and then enter combat, you will transform back to your regular model?

and then add a 5 sec CD for all skills. This will end tonic use in WvW.

Nuzt.7894:

Jong.5937:

I’d like to suggest an equally stupid explanation for the DBls being relatively quiet. “Casuals”/QQ’ers have never bothered learning the DBL, so feel too scared to go there in case they get lost or accidentally walk off a high ledge!

You shouldn’t have to work to enjoy something. It’s either enjoyable and then you put the effort in to learn more about it, or it’s not and you don’t look back. I’m sure I could plaster your quote with analogies but why bother, it’s common sense, if something doesn’t grab your interest within the first few minutes it likely never will.

Actually, DBL for newer players does teach an important skill….staying on tag.

However, running back from spawn does pose problems for new to map players if you have to run past air or fire keep. The only thing you need to learn on ABL is where the safe drop areas are.

So BG has more first place skirmish finishes this match than the other two servers combined. What’s your point?

If Anet doesn’t want to balance WvW by moving players maybe they can balance matchups by limiting supply…..Good suggestion there OP.

The issue with balance is that limiting transfers doesn’t balance the match this week, next week, next month, maybe next year.

Jeknar.6184:

Swamurabi.7890:

The PPK players play ABL/EB because they’re better for PPK

Explain to me what’s the difference between DBL and ABL that affect PPK so much that “only PPT players play there”?

DBL doesn’t lend itself to open field fights (PPK) like ABL does. ABL is also smaller so that in the five areas of ABL where you can have all three sides gather, when two sides fight and one loses, it doesn’t take long for the losing side to respawn, regroup and return to the fight.

I remember spending most of a raid in the area between bay and garri, where all three sides waited to 1v1 with the loser sitting out and regrouping. This lasted for HOURS. It was the best time I’ve had in GW2. It could never happen in DBL.

What is unfortunate for WvW is that like YB’s version of PPT took the fun out of playing, Mag’s version of PPK is taking away what’s left.

So, the three reasons to play on DBL are:

1. You’re in a zerg and you play for PPT and you want to ktrain the map
2. You’re in a zerg and you play for PPT and your server has coverage for 4 maps
3. You’re small scale/roamer and you play for PPT

The PPK players play ABL/EB because they’re better for PPK

While I don’t play WvW for the dailies, there are some out there that come into WvW just for the dailies.

As a way to get them to play WvW longer and perhaps become a more permanent part of the game I think that the WvW dailies should be harder than PvP or PvE rewards.

Find your processor’s single thread benchmark here

Buddah.2180:

which is my kittening point should match up servers of equal populations not one big max population server vs 2 low pop ones they suck at their job

You’re making the false assumption that Anet knows server populations, after all, BG became open a few weeks ago even after they were steamrolling their matchup.