Guild Wars 2

As far as I know there are only two ways (historically) that you can win if you are besieged in a tower or castle. Either you keep the attackers busy until a larger friendly force arrives and wipes them out, or the attackers get bored and give up.

As a defender myself, I know that if I face a large group, I probably can’t stop them taking stuff. I can sure try to make their attempt more difficult though

I find siege disablers helpful and you can use shield generators too. A handful of players can take out a cata quite quickly. The closer it is to being able to run back in to safety the better chance you stand. If you face a force large enough to defend the catas properly – why shouldn’t they win?

There has been discussion about point-blank catas before. One suggestion was to have reduced damage at close range.

It’s hard to find a spot on the wall where siege can be placed that doesn’t get hit easily. There are a few places however – ask some veteran players or look at siege positions in a level 2 or level 3 structure that has survived attack and try things for yourself. I learned a lot about AC placement just by refreshing the siege in our Garrison and testing where I could hit as I refreshed (helpful tip – it can make a difference where you stand too).

You can also practice with mortars – I get a friend to stand where the attacking siege is usually placed and learn the power and direction to hit that spot, then we swap over so we both know.

Thanks for the reply Norbe. It’s a fair question to ask about my experience – I’ve been on the same NA server since GW2 launched and saw action in T2 through to T8 before linking. Since linking I’ve been in each of the four current tiers including T1. So I’ve experienced play that varies from groups of over 50 down to literally one or two players on a map.

You are of course right – about solo capping stuff on a high tier, especially if you can time it so the defenders are busy. Perhaps the biggest difference I’ve seen is that on lower tiers you are more likely to meet a defending force of a similar size to your own small party when roaming, and I find this makes the fights more fun.

Joneirikb – while I understand your suggestion I would not be in favour of losing the “home” map. That’s just a personal opinion. I am one of those players who will happily run around in my home BL refreshing siege, retaking stuff and keeping an eye on things. I enjoy a good run in other maps too, but my priority has always been home.

WvW is a game mode that has so many different ways to play – and they’re all good. It would be good to find a solution will allow this variety to continue.

Norbe – you missed the point of being a low tier roamer – our purpose is to solo cap camps, towers and keeps Please note it’s ok if you do this in a group of two or three, but anything over five in the party is cheating – I know because this is how it was in the bottom tiers at off peak times. It was surprisingly more fun that you might think, although I can sort of understand how some players dare not venture out without at least 10 complimentary built companions to provide the might, condi cleanse, speed, resistance, invuln and other buffs… oh and to flash build those open field ACs properly.

Seriously however, if I want K train I would look to EotM, and isn’t EB one big King of the Stonemist Hill battle? So really the choice is between your T1 and T4 and I know where I’d put my money toon.

For years now a number of players have told us that server pride is dead. I don’t know the background of these players but suspect they don’t feel any loyalty to the server they are currently on, and this may not be the server they first started WvW on.

Those of us who play for server pride knew they were wrong, and sometimes told people so. Server pride can be a good source of motivation for players that are loyal to their server. Whether you transferred to somewhere you really like or whether you’ve always been there doesn’t matter – you’re fighting for your home server and that’s what provides the motivation to defend a borderlands or rampage through an enemy.

Server linking changed things quite a lot. Some servers no longer see their name in WvW – everything they do is credited to the “host” server. Other servers gained an influx of players who had different ideas and expectations about how things should be done. We all made the best of the new situation.
I do wonder, now we have some months of experience with the linking system,

• How has this affected the motivation of players on either server?
• How has this affected the server populations?
• Has server pride finally died or is it still keeping communities together?

I ask these questions because I’m interested, and because the motivation to play is a key part of keeping WvW alive. If server pride has actually died, perhaps as a result of linking, then why do we play?

I’ve read this post with some interest – the desire for non-large blob combat has existed for a long time despite the drive to merge/link servers into huge populations for epic battles. Don’t get me wrong, I like an epic battle now and then, but like the OP I prefer to play in the lower tiers in small groups. What would be ideal (for me) would be a way to engage in large battles when I feel like it while having regular smaller server based action.

About three months ago I posted an idea as a result of feelings very similar to those expressed by the OP.
The basic idea was to keep three tiers of servers as they are now where servers move up and down the rankings (sort of “ranked WvW”). I suggested introducing two tiers (six servers) of smaller population servers that would rotate weekly on match up basis so the weekly score doesn’t affect who your server plays (“unranked WvW” if you like).
The idea was to provide the ranked competitive play so many players enjoy, along with smaller group play for those who prefer that style – making the assumption that players won’t blob or bandwagon the “unranked” servers because there’s no way they’ll rise into a “top tier” from the unranked division.

The thread was generally positive but with other more important issues to discuss the forum moved on (understandably). I thought it might be worth mentioning again since I wonder if it’s a solution that would help the OP situation – either in the original form or after evolution/adaptation into something better.

( Previous thread can be found here if you want to read it)

This is NOT a post about which BL is best – we already know which from all the other discussions.

What’s new is that the Desert BL and Alpine BLs have been in play together, and for me a key question is how well does Anet think this works. By now they will have some data about player populations, captures, queues, server loading.

I suspect someone more skilled than me could sift through the API data and help Anet answer my question, but until someone capable is able to help I’d be really interested to know, in general terms, whether the metrics so far indicate a reasonable equivalence between the border land designs.

No way I can agree with this. The original post actually suggests rewarding the players who made the mess! The players most likely to transfer off a server if offered a reward (2000 gems and no transfer fee) are the fair-weather server hoppers anyway, and then they’ll try to transfer back.

If you want to offer an incentive to not be in the highest population servers offer 2000 gems each to all the players in the bottom two tiers. Better still, do this every time the server links change.

There have been several posts in the past months calling for this. It’s probably still too controversial since the majority of players are on the “host” servers and many of these would rather see other people (“guest” servers) pay the price for the state of WvW.

A complete reset maybe fair, but that doesn’t make it the best option commercially and Anet like any company needs to make money.

I must say however that I disagree with Aeolus – a lot has changed since the release of GW2 and WvW: stability, Desert BL, conditions, elites and the dev team to name but a few factors. The problem lies in integrating all these changes in a balanced way – and that’s not quite what has happened. At least a complete reset could coincide with separating WvW from PvE and PvP, allowing some fundamental balance changes to occur. Unfortunately to do this requires planning and time to code it all, and although this could all be neatly built into the next expansion I wonder if that will be too late.

Thanks for all the replies, they have been (mostly) helpful although it would be nice to get an Anet response before the map actually launches. I’m surprised that this info wasn’t covered in the other post announcing the return of the Desert BL on Tuesday – it should have been.

I recall the side waypoints being moved out of the towers and into the keeps, but couldn’t remember if they had been altered to work for the server owning the keep. This is a crucial thing for the defending server and would be necessary to keep the maps fair (or as close as we can get between designs).

Bloodlust may be an issue then. Is there more info on this Anet? I guess you could argue that the red server is often lower scoring so perhaps they benefit less from the impact of bloodlust anyway, but I personally believe the maps should be as fair as possible.

Mobs I’m not too fussed about, but thought it worth asking because I felt they were different between the two maps (seems to be my memory at fault again).

Hesacon’s point about the tower and keep lords could be interesting. Personally I don’t see it as a major issue but it is a difference so I wonder how soon it will be before we have posts claiming it’s not fair that Desert BL has these things (or Alpine doesn’t)…

Whether you like it or not, one server will get DBL as their home borderlands.

I have a few questions about using Desert BL alongside Alpine:

1. Will DBL now have way points that are open for whoever caps the keep (like Alpine) or will will there be the previous system where the WP belongs to the nearest spawning server?

2. Is bloodlust being added to Desert BL or removed from Alpine?

3. Are the PvE type mobs being reworked to be similar in number and strength between the BLs? (Or even removed?!).

I can’t recall seeing definitive answers to these questions (then again my memory is getting worse as I get more ancient…). Previously the differences were not important because everyone had the same BL, but soon this will not be the case.

For many years I was convinced tat a zerg was a group of more people than you could fit in a party. We often fought off zergs of 6 or 8, and occasionally managed to raise our own zerg of perhaps 7 players. Twelve was an invincible force.

Then server linking started and we got “guested” into a top tier pairing. It turns out that you really can have a sea of red names crashing against the wall of the tower or keep you are trying to defend. Wow! It’s a very different kind of battle.

The only way to combat zerging is to scale WvW locally so numbers are much less important. Even lower map caps will just mean less players in the “vastly superior numbers” force. Ultimately

I can see the arguments about seige, condi, AoE, boon share. All of these are factors that can help if adjusted so they no longer favour bigger groups. The question is how to do this fairly and without too much imbalance. I’m not sure how this can be done, although in a previous post (here) I suggested modifying the outnumbered buff to work locally (combat range) and using it to add scaling stacks of might and damage reduction to the outnumbered players.

Any working solution would be welcomed by the majority of player I believe.

I’m not convinced that transferring works for everyone. I know several players who transferred off my home server, only to transfer back when they found out that their new server had the same sorts of issues. There are also players I know who have transferred and stayed. I assume they are happy and feel they made the right choice.

At the moment, either you have the choice of :

• transfer to a “host” server (if you can) so you can have stability, fight for scoring and position, and have some sense of community and server pride,
• transfer to a “guest” server where you risk randomly changing tiers every two months, gain score for your hosting server but not yourself, and are lucky if your guest server has been able to maintain a sense of community.

Combine these choices with the competitive nature of most WvW players and it’s no wonder that we see so much band-wagonning. Free transfers will only ever make this easier to do.

One of the “problems” I’ve encountered with Guilds is that they are not all the same. This is also their beauty too.

There are PvX guilds who do some WvW – how would they fit into this proposed system? Would you say they are irrelevant because they also do PvE and PvP? Or would you include them , in which case you might have a 500 member guild with about 10 frequent WvW players. How would you allow for this in your suggested system?

I’ve met and played with several pure WvW guilds. Some are friendly towards new and casual players and allow players to join in as they wish, other guilds require TS and specific builds because that suits how they work. Both have their place but a new payer would probably need to join the first type guild before gaining enough experience to function well in the latter. How does saying “you must join a WvW guild to play WvW” allow for the different play styles and transitions between guild types?

I also believe that there are players who prefer not to run in a guild who are active and experienced in WvW. They are often the scouts and roamers who maintain a home BL or run havoc while guilds run closed sessions. I would hate to turn away these invaluable players simply because they don’t want to be stuck with a guild tag.

Finally, and on a personal note, I’m a member of three guilds – all great people – and they all have all the WvW buffs. It’s sooo useful being able to claim a tower AND the camp that supplies it. I know many players prefer to dedicate their work within one guild and that’s good too, it’s just not the answer for everyone. How would multi guild membership work under the proposed system?

We’ve had this sort of “debate” so many times with no resolution because no-one has been able to define “night” in an objective way. Usually the original poster uses “night” to mean a time when they are not playing – and to claim that a 24/7 game should be limited to one player’s preferred play time is going against the very basis of a world wide MMO like GW2.

There are time driven population imbalances (an ugly phrase but accurate) that affect all aspects of GW2, and especially WvW. However there will always be more players on at some time in the match than at another time, so we have to either live with it and play on, or stop playing – that’s a personal choice we each make. I understand the pain of being outnumbered and being stomped for what seems like forever – my server experienced this for many months, but there is no benefit to flaming each other and it doesn’t even help resolve anything.

Anet are doing what they can to address the time dependant population issues in what they see as a fair way – that was the point of being able to link servers together to even out the total population coverage for each combination.

Ultimately though, it’s the players who have the ability to resolve time based population differences, and I have yet to see off peak players inspired to join and help a server after being kittened at in the forums…

Thanks for explaining Jana. It could be that EU and NA need different solutions, but that gets complex. On the other hand, why not – we can’t mix (yet?).

I completely agree that we really need to try to keep the players we have, and would add that we should ideally be recruiting more people to WvW. To do this the game mode needs to be seen as fun and exciting. It should be easy to get into and hard to master.

I think Nutz summed it up quite well: “something needs to be done”. Anet knows this, and presumably they have devs working on the solutions right now. Perhaps even for release soon™ ?!

Why wait for April? Just add a stampede tactivator to camps.
It could summon 10 dolyaks at once, spawning as a herd that charges off to their objective, stampeding anyone in the way (like the minotaurs in Wayfarer).

If you add a cooldown that matches the spawn time for 10 dolyaks, with none spawning while on cooldown, the camp upgrade time would be the same. As a tactic it could even replace the supply drop for towers and keeps too.

Add an ability to dye the glow.

@Jana: Eight months ago when linking was first suggested there was no indication that guest servers would not have their name displayed or that they would not gain any score. Given the alternative was to lose our server identity by being merged into other servers many of us preferred to retain our server community – just as players on the “host” servers would have done. It was only as Anet announced the linking details that it became clear we’d lose the very identity we had tried to retain.

Just out of interest – if it was not a third of players who were on the “guest” servers – what proportion would you estimate?

I can see the logic of your comment about guilds. I assume you are referring to a WvW guild on your linked server: I wish them luck.

I saw the thread about bandwagoning. It happens because players are competitive and many want to be in the top tiers. These players will transfer if they can because they perceive the top tier as being better. It’s not something that can be stopped unless you block transfers. However not all players have this mentality, and many of those who don’t were on the servers that got linked. Removing server identity and scoring actually has more impact on these players than those who would transfer around anyway.

Combat doesn’t have to be balanced all the time. In fact being outnumbered can bring a server together as they fight to overcome the odds. The problem with being outnumbered is when it happens for months (literally).This is what happened a year or so ago when there were four T2 quality servers in NA. I was there. We fought back for three months before players started to leave, and even after nine months there were players like me who still fought on. These players stayed on for their server and community, and that’s what has been taken from us.

A fresh start gives all players (and guilds) a chance to influence the success of their new server. Players will transfer, servers will rise and fall just like we’ve seen since launch, but there would be plenty of fights, and positions to fight for, as the new servers jockey for places in reset tiers. It would in effect restore the element of competition across the wider range of servers.

Please – no EotM-like solutions, thank you. We already have EotM and if I want to play there I’ll go there. WvW borderlands (and EB) are a different playground, let’s keep it so.

@Illconceived Was Na: You say that “every server has some server pride, especially in T1 and T2 worlds.” The whole point of the OP was that this server pride has been stripped from the “guest” servers because our identity was squashed when we were bound into slavery for our “hosts”.

For those of us who fight for server pride and loyalty, being on a “guest” server is not motivating at all.

The problem with linking isn’t the actual idea, it’s the way it was done. Removing the “guest” server identities has alienated a third of the player base (I’m guessing here that 2/3 of players were in the top half that became hosts?). If Anet had implemented a way to maintain score for “guests” we could still compete and still be listed in the rankings. This is part of our identity and pride. Take this away and what are we competing for? Someone else’s benefit: altruism is all very well but it isn’t the primary psychological basis for a competitive game mode like WvW !

Do I really want to force everyone in the game to make a new WvW choice? Well, yes actually, as long as it really is everyone. The players on the “guest” servers have seen their identity stripped to appease the players on the “top” servers. Now I’m simply suggesting everyone is treated in an identical manner… this is fair to all players.

If there are completely new servers, with new names and zero score, it is possible that the current server populations might recreate themselves, but it is unlikely. Anet are aware of the total number of players and can create a sufficient number of servers for us. If they set the population cap for each server a bit lower the current populations would have to be more evenly spread out and there would be less lag. The cap could be raised again if the total WvW population increases to require this.

Anet would also have the chance to influence or manage server populations, with the advantage of past experience to guide them. WvW has a more active team supporting it now, and the years of neglect that lead to where we are now may well be avoided.

I don’t think Anet can go back to individual servers now. The “guest” servers have gained no score since the linking concept started, and Anet have already said they have no idea how to allocate score to them should one become an independent server.

The best we can hope for is that Anet could do a full reset: delete all servers and create new ones with new names and zero score. It would take time to settle down again and over time similar problems might develop if not managed, but it would be a fair solution.

I understand your pain – it’s similar in the NA tiers, although without the language restrictions.

As “guest” servers we have been stripped of our identity and now exist solely to support a “big blob” mentality by supplying extra numbers for the remaining “host” servers.

Does anyone on the “guest” servers find this motivating?

Actually, while I accept that outside of the WvW tournaments scoring has no effect on in game rewards, I don’t think scoring is incidental for many players. After all, WvW is competitive and most players want to know if they are winning.

Also Anet use the total Glicko score to place servers in tiers. Again this is something many players care about.

The current scoring system is a problem because it ignores linked servers and tiers are still based on historical data that is no longer relevant. I agree that changing the scoring system is unlikely to bring more players flooding in and there are other issues that need work too, but keeping to a broken system is definitely going to discourage current and future players from enjoying the game to the full.

I thought it was a mini arena:

• There’s space round the outside to watch (one is even arena shaped with tiered seating),
• The opponents have to stay in the square (small area like a fixed arena),
• and if you get bored you can build temporary siege (although I’ve not seen this actually used).

Oh and if you stand in three for long enough it helps the BL teams (strategic value).

I think the potential is there, we just don’t use them fully as players.

I don’t think this works, for the simple reason that Glicko itself doesn’t work any more.

In NA Tier 4 the SBI combo of servers is due to see their overall glicko decrease despite the fact that they clearly have a much higher score at the moment than the other servers (combined!). This means you can’t even use the weekly change in Glicko to determine matches; not to mention the fact that historical glicko is only relevant to solo servers since the score earned by multiple servers is only attributed to one.

At the time of writing this mos.millenium gives scores of:

• SBI/HD: 425 969
• SF/FC/GoM: 226 624
  *DH/EB: 166 408

with SBI/HD glicko predicted to change by -25.552.

I know the situation has an artificial element because of the recent invisible glicko tweak by the devs but any system where a server combo can win so convincingly and yet have less chance of promotion is broken.

Glicko is a problem that we all recognise, not least because:
1. The SBI combo in T4 NA is due to go DOWN in total glicko rating despite the fact they have more score than their opponents have put together.
2. Server linking means the historical glicko gained prior to the current link is only relevant to solo servers and not the new combinations.

Anet need something they can work from. They need data to feed into the algorithm that does the matchups.

So I’d like to suggest the Glicko system is replaced with a simple World Rank Gained system where the score for any server/combination of servers is the total WvW rank gained by those players during the match. I know it sounds a bit simple, but I think it would cover differences in populations, activity and server combinations.

The gain in WvW rank for each player is data Anet has access to, including for players on the linked servers, so they can total this for each server. Add the totals for servers that are linked together. They should even be able to use “Total Rank Gained per Server” to create more balanced server linkings because they can see what score a “guest” server would have added to their “host” (albeit for the last match).

It can’t be worse than what we have now, doesn’t need artificial tweaking to generate volatility and seems better than first up/last down which leaves the top and bottom 2 servers with no where to go.

Thoughts?

Ok, I see your point now. I don’t think Anet actually changed the ranking system though. They kept the same ranking system for the 12 “host” servers and simply sold the 12 “guest” servers into slavery.

The existing ranking system is essentially useless now because the score for one of the privileged “host” servers includes the efforts of their temporary companion(s). Unless a server is solo, the population and WvW make up is different with each new linking, and the score the “host” server gains is not necessarily representative of that named server alone any more.

In other words, linked combinations are new entities for the ranking system. This messes up the balance if you try to use glicko to create the matches, which is what we’ve seen for this linking period in NA with several server combos running away with the matches.

Unfortunately Anet and some players seem to see the historical glicko as still relevant somehow, so you get strong multi server opponents that don’t fit the tier they are put in and forum posts asking why server X has gone up (or down).

It definitely needs improvement to make sense any more.

Take a look at the mechanics.

A catapult will throw a missile with enough force to damage a wall in a tower or keep. It doesn’t really matter how close the catapult is to the wall as long as the throwing arm can move. So no, I don’t agree with a minimum range – it’s illogical and not sensible.

Catapults cause splash damage when the missile hits. I suppose it breaks apart, or bits of wall fly off from the impact. There’s no reason why the catapult itself should be immune to this sort of damage, so logically I’d accept friendly fire for siege items (rather than players which I think most people would dislike).

In fact if we’re going to take a look at this, why does one flame ram not set fire to the others next to it?
Perhaps ALL siege should cause damage to siege, friendly or otherwise. That would make things a bit interesting…

Sorry, but I’m confused by your post.

I thought you were going to explain how the linking system works but you did not explain it at all. I’ve asked before how does it all work (on this thread here) but I seem to have a better idea of what is actually happening than you do: for example it is clear from Anet’s original statements that only the “host” servers gain score from the linking and the “guest” servers gain nothing (although the individual players may have a better experience as a result of the temporary link). This is why you see some servers with no score for weeks.

Do you actually know how the server linking works? Or is this just another thread complaining about it? Or are you saying, correctly (and at some length) that it’s now impossible to compare the “guest” servers with anything because their score is not updated anymore?

I don’t think Anet are monitoring the linked server scores at all.

Three months ago, on this thread Chris Barrett wrote the following:

• Linked “host” worlds have their Glicko data updated in the usual way. Linked “guest” world Glicko isn’t affected. It’s not yet determined what approach we’ll use for Glicko data for guest worlds when world links are changed, in the case that a guest either becomes a host or goes solo.

I think Anet simply look at the number of players who are on and when, and use this to try to balance the server combinations. This method assumes all players are equally good.

I agree that perhaps the right way to do linking would be to monitor (and publish) the scores for every server, and then create links based on score combinations. This method acknowledges that some players are more skilled. However, I think this would be complex to code because Anet would have to track the home server for each player even when in multiple combinations, which is why I think they just teleport people into the “host” map as temporary players for that side.

I wonder if a dev will step in and confirm or explain for us.

@Warlord: with a reset for NA servers, after the first week JQ, SBI and CD teams would have been facing off against each other instead of dominating their tiers trying to push up to another. Yes the first week or two would be chaotic but it would settle into groups that were matched without a glicko cliff to climb. As for lopsided matches for 6 months or more – you do know links change every 2 months don’t you?

@Heimlich: I fully agree that the fun and interest are the most important elements we need. The question is how to achieve this.

How does Linking work? It looks to me as though all the players on the linked server are simply “moved” as temporary guests to maps for the “host” server of Anet’s choice.
This would explain why we can’t see our server name and why we don’t earn any score for ourselves.

Is this right or have I misunderstood what happens behind the scenes?

I had somehow hoped that linking would allow the 12 linked servers to retain some form of identity and some feeling of progress, but I can’t see how this can be achieved if linking works the way I think it does.

Glicko doesn’t need tweaking or adjusting or invisible changes – it needs resetting to zero each time linking is changed.

Why?

Because linking was introduced specifically to change “server” performance. In what way is the historical glicko from previous years or links at all relevant when the actual player base for a server/combo changes at each linking?

I can’t believe Anet don’t understand this, so the fact that they are fiddling with invisible adjustments either means they can’t set it to zero (or some arbitrary number like 1800), or they believe the linked servers have no impact on what happens. (Really?!)
Or is it just that Anet figure more players will be upset if they equalise everything than will be upset by continuing with current scores?

If Healing were used to reduce condi damage then perhaps build diversity would improve:

• Zealots (Power, Precision, Healing) would make a hard hitting condi surviving build.
• Nomads would still be the ultimate tank build, although Givers would perhaps become another option.
• Clerics, Shamans, Apothecarys and Settlers equipment would become more useful.
• Celestial would again become a reasonable compromise for everything.

So, from the limited responses so far, it would be nice to have both situations available then?

Back when I was in T6 or T7 I could hop into EotM for a bit of mindless zerging if I wanted. Now I want to hop the other way – but can’t find the equivalent quieter option. Hence the question – should there be one? And this can only happen if there’s enough interest (ironically low populations would have to be popular enough to be considered!)

Incidental rant:
@Skynet: I understand the points you make and agree with most.
However I was on one of the linked servers and I can assure you that the idea that linking retains linked server identity is just so much kitten – we have no identity in WvW, we can only earn score for another server, and we get passed on to anyone that Anet wants every two months with no say in the matter – we’ve basically been sold into slavery and told it’s a good thing… (Sorry – it’s not you – this is a sore point; made worse because Anet have made no effort to fulfil their original promise to help us maintain some form of server identity).

Yeah – I considered vitality too but thought healing was a better choice because vitality already counted against both direct and condi damage.

How many people would actually like to play sometimes or all the time in smaller groups?

Everything at the moment seems to be geared towards creating massive numbers and “epic battles”. I know a lot of people enjoy this.

I’ve also seen posts however from players who don’t enjoy the rolling zergs, or at least not all the time. Are there enough of these players to make a set of lower population servers viable?

I agree that there should be some way of reducing condi damage in the same way as armor reduces direct damage, but I really don’t think toughness is the right attribute for this. It would not be right because a build with a high toughness would then counter both condi and direct damage. It would not be balanced for a single defensive stat to reduce both damage types, when a strong condi damage build requires players to choose different attributes to a power direct damage build.

I saw a post on here a month or two back that suggested the healing stat could be used to reduce condi like toughness reduces direct damage. I liked the idea at the time and I still like it, especially since the healing stat is little used at the moment.
It would also make sense: good toughness is a physical attribute that helps you ignore physical damage while good healing helps you recover faster from bleeding or poison.

Something like this was discussed earlier when I proposed a dynamic short range “outmanned” buff here :https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Changing-outmanned/first#post6154980 .

The discussion ended up with the suggestion that outmanned could be a short range buff that gave stacks of might and damage reduction that varied with the number of players within combat range. This would get around the issue of outmanned actually being worthless and would possibly even bring a counter play to big blobs.

The current tier system is ineffective because of the mismatch between the server linking system and historical glicko. Anet need to either:

A) Reset glicko to ZERO every time the server links change

or

B) Record separate glicko for each server and each linked combination gets the total glicko for the combination of servers involved.

At present “guest” servers don’t gain glicko so when links are changed the new server combination has a population and skill level that is now different to that which earned the glicko used to rank them. This population flexibility is the whole point in the linking system. However this is NOT reflected properly in the matches because the tiers are based on glicko ratings that have only a partial relevance and this creates artificial glicko walls. To get around this Anet tries to make matches a bit more random… but if we’re going to get random matches why bother with tiers?

Properly implemented tiers can encourage and motivate players, so I think they’re worth keeping if they can be done right.

Is it just me or is the reward track really based on damage for participation? It just seems that when I’m on siege my participation increases very quickly – far quicker than when I’m in normal combat, which is in turn much quicker than scouting or repairing.

I know participation has to use some kind of metric, but if it’s only damage then surely siege use becomes the most rewarding* play?

*rewarding in the sense of getting rewards not necessarily in the sense of being enjoyable or personally challenging.

Thanks for the comments.

I don’t think this idea would be divisive, it’s sort of the equivalent between sPvP Ranked and unRanked play in that it should allow players a choice of why to play. There is no change in rules required, merely a change in how servers in the unranked league are matched.

I was unsure about map caps. I wonder if the different play styles would self select the right number of players? I would be ok with a smaller map cap for unranked but wouldn’t want it to interfere with players being able to play on these servers when they log in. Ideally no queues or very short queues – when I join WvW it is to play not to queue!

The fact that the unranked League would have random matches should make server stacking irrelevant here – the score doesn’t decide the next match and you’re not going to take any of these servers into the ranked League.

My only concern is whether the personal reward track is enough motivation for the players in the unranked League… there would be no route to glory as the top server here. On the other hand we haven’t had any rewards for server position for such a long time that this may not be a problem. Is this the bit that is missing Joneirikb?!

What about Competitions? If Anet introduce a WvW season the Ranked League is obvious (probably with blobs and server stacking and all the other ultra competitive stuff that players do). In the unranked League, would players accept average score per match? Or total score over the season? Would we actually want unranked servers to participate in a WvW season or would we be the safe-haven for players who don’t want that pressure or burnout? Remember: servers won’t transfer between leagues but players may still have accounts in each league allowing them to play where they wish.

Blob wars or small group action?
Fights or objectives?

There are no right answers and while some players are devoted to one view or the other many players enjoy a bit of everything. So WvW should allow this variation, and since I’m not convinced the current system does I’d like to suggest an almost different approach: two divisions covering five tiers (15 servers in total).

Three tiers are arranged as we have now:

• T1 – servers A vs B vs C
• T2 – servers D vs E vs F
• T3 – servers G vs H vs I
  These tiers work as they do now. Scoring is league based and servers move up or down position according to their score (just as they can do now). I would suggest rotating maps between Desert and Alpine as already planned.
  The idea is to provide for large group fight based play – pretty much as the top 3 tiers used to be before linking.

Now for the other league:.
Two more tiers arranged thus:

• Group A – servers 1 vs 2 vs 3
• Group B – servers 4 vs 5 vs 6
  In this division the servers would be randomly matched against each other at reset each week. This gives 10 (I think) possible combinations with only a 40% chance of playing against any specific server. I would suggest Tier A has Desert BL and Tier B has Alpine so servers get each map on average half the time (servers can be randomly in either A or B group).
  The idea of these tiers is to allow smaller group strategic play.

Servers can’t move between divisions. Players can, with a cheaper transfer fee between divisions and more costly between servers in the same division (but less than twice the “division transfer” fee of course).

• Over all the reduced number of servers should see a boosted active population on each.
• Probably fewer players would want to play in the random matches division which would support the idea of smaller group combat.
• I would consider “blowing up” the existing servers and making newly named ones to try to give a fresh start (with scores reset too) however this is not essential – it could be implemented with existing servers.
• Some/many players would probably have accounts in both divisions. This isn’t a problem as players will have their main account in the division they prefer, with the chance to play alt accounts when they want a change.

Assuming that there is no perfect solution, would this provide a reasonable set-up that could work for the varied play styles and preferences?

If you’re planning on moving the “guest” servers around ever then you need to do something to actually allow their communities to survive. This was mentioned as an issue in the original post about linking servers and nothing has been done to help retain the smaller servers identity.

• We used to have our own TS – but now usually use the “host” server one because that’s where the greater number of players are.
• We used to have our own Borderlands but now play on the “host” server BL.
• We used to have our own score but now can only contribute to the score of the “host” server.

Servers only exist in WvW now, and the only place you get to map-meet and map-chat with new players on your server used to be in your home BL – we can’t even do that now because you don’t know if a new player is on your server or the linked one. I know that once you start playing it doesn’t make a difference – but it will if you remove the linking and players find friendships and guilds split as a result.

If you’re planning on relinking servers, ever, then you need to give the servers somewhere to meet up with fellow server members (with the ability to invite guests for meetings).
I’d suggest server halls (could be copies of guild halls to save time provided you let enough people on the map) with all the crafting stations moved from citadel into the server hall and a mystic forge. That gives a reason to be there, a quick jump in and out and a place you can go to shout for help. For simplicity I’d have a key short cut to get in and exiting would put you in citadel on your home BL (or your spawn at your last WvW map).

I don’t really care how you do it, but give us a place to call home, or you won’t be “relinking servers”, you’ll be shuffling unpaid mercenaries at best and homeless refugees at worst.

Tyler – I hope you’re still reading this thread.

It’s good to see you put an idea to the community to see what the response is like. You and your team seem to have given us more communication and progress in the last six weeks than we’ve had for years – literally. I can’t imagine anyone who is not enthused by this.

BUT I’ve just got in from work, done the RL stuff I have to do and read your post here. Within 21 hours of putting the idea up you’ve decided that you’ve had enough feedback. Some of us haven’t had a chance to respond yet. Was this issue so in need of a rapid response that you couldn’t let it run into the weekend? If so then please state this in the original post next time. If there’s no rush please give the players who are away for a day, or working longer shifts, time to respond.

Just in case you do read this, here’s my thoughts.
IIRC the idea you posted was to make more smaller servers so you could link several together in different combinations as an easier way to address overall population numbers and to give more variety.
I’m beginning to think you’re unaware of the problems caused by shuffling “servers” around – it plays hell with the actual community feeling that makes a server what it is.
I have no problems with new servers, and would consider moving to one but it depends on what you plan to do with them. I have zero interest in being on a pinball server passed from match to match each week with no chance to build teamwork or cohesion between allies.

Tyler – thanks for the information.

So basically the choice is:

• Yes – continue with Server Linking (with some changes to come later)

• No – go back to eight tiers with the current (unknown) populations from the “Host” and “Guest” servers. This may be changed later, some time after other higher priority work.

Firstly – thanks for more frequent posts, and for starting the polls so players can have some input. In order to make this more useful there are several things that you (Anet) need to address so we (players) can help you properly – especially in this poll.

1. The first WvW poll was advertised in game. I stumbled across this one because I read the forums. I know of many other players who participate in WvW who don’t read the forums very often and could easily miss this poll even though it has a direct impact on them.
Please make all polls noticeable to all affected players – the best way would be a clear on screen message on logging into WvW, although on the start up GW2 screen would do.

2. The current linking has seen the smallest population servers swallowed by the largest population servers. There are different degrees of linking, T4+T5 is a more even partnership than T1+T8. Which are we voting on? I know you’ll say all of them but the situations are so different from a players point of view.

3. What are the alternatives to Server Linking? Different match-ups or Megaserver or back to how it was before? Each has it’s own advantages and problems, and without knowing what you’re thinking of how am I to decide whether what I have now is better?

• If you’re asking is there more action than before – yes.
• If you’re asking do I want to go back to how it was before – well that’s a different question.
• If you’re asking do I want to be linked to a different server – heck NO! I’m still trying to get used to this one.

4. You haven’t told those of us on the “guest” servers how you will decide our new positions. You’ve not let us see our names for weeks and we’ve been getting no score however hard we work.
You can’t just put us back where we used to be and expect everything to be ok. ET for example was easily climbing out of T8 and would have been out long before the linking beta started if there hadn’t been such a glicko cliff. Now they’re even bigger and better so will you just put them back as top of T8? Who is that fair to – not them and not the other two servers there.

5. What was/is the Server Linking beta designed to test? There are so many possible scenarios but I don’t know which you (Anet) actually intended. Here are some suggestions I’ve seen of what is being trialled with this server linking:

• Server Linking technology – a trial of your ability to link servers?
• Player population balancing – does linking balance WvW populations?
• Player participation – does linking servers increase player participation?
• Time zone balancing – does linking servers reduce the impact of time zone imbalance?
• Server deletion – how will players respond to having their server deleted (tested on a minority of players because the smaller servers are currently memories more than reality)?
  I could list more, but you get the point…

What you were testing and what we as players have experienced may well be different, and to be open and honest, there seems to have been times in the past when we (the players) have assumed that you mean one thing when actually you (Anet) were testing or implementing something quite different, so please forgive me if I feel we need to ask:
What is the question you are asking me to answer?
How can I give a meaningful answer without knowing what was being tested here!

One of the key problems with the existing outmanned is that it is triggered when a large number of enemy players enter your map and you can’t do much about it against overwhelming odds.

Giving a boost to PPK so kills give x2 score is fine in theory but realistically outmanned is usually caused by the presence of a zerg now. Most players in this situation have little hope of challenging the zerg. So giving them extra points for kills they can’t make isn’t that helpful… If it is a map wide bonus they are more likely to use it by seeking out other smaller groups or roamers and meanwhile the zerg rolls on.

Similarly I’m less keen on using Outmanned to provide extra siege or supply. I can see the appeal of it for defence, but believe it would lead to small numbers being forced to camp in towers and keeps behind as much siege as they can put up. Although this is realistic I have the impression most players dislike this sort of situation. It also further promotes zerging because you know the defenders will turtle so therefore you need more players to take a target.

The changes I’m suggesting for Outmanned should lead to small numbers of players having an impact on large blobs. If they are able to kill some of the blobbers then the odds reduce and so does their outmanned buff – which should help keep the fight fair.

One problem I see is the small, skilled groups who are specialised in anti-zerg tactics would become more effective. Two co-ordinated players facing a 25 person group might be able to sit either side of the bigger group and each be outmanned to the limit gaining perhaps 25 stacks of might and 50% damage resistance. They may be able to kill players in the group with this advantage. But every player they killed would reduce the buff they have and they would have to be very careful not to enter combat range of each other or the buff would drop to half. It would take skill to pull this off, so I don’t mind that happening – in effect they’ve earned the bonus. If the zerg doesn’t like it they can spread out and reduce the effect of outmanned on their opponents.

The other problem I foresee is duelling. If two players are duelling and 20 friends are watching the player from one server (and the other duelist has no one nearby from their server) his/her opponent would get a substantial buff making the fight unfair. The solution of course is for spectators to back out of combat range and the duelling players don’t get buffed. Or start a new “duelling” style of 1 vs many to practice multi opponent combat. I don’t know – I’m not a duelist – but I don’t see this as a big issue.

If you’ve read the posts you’ll remember my suggestion has evolved into a change that gives stacks of might and new-resistance (damage reduction) rather than scaling player stats directly. I am defining this as not a stat increase because these buffs already exist in game for players and are in common use, whereas “stat increase” sounds like a change to the players base stats rather than a short term top-up.

Jaruselka – I agree. I think my suggested changes would make “outmanned” useful but not overpowered. Hopefully players would recognise the benefits rather than “oh no there’s a lot of enemy on the map!”.
Also you would only see “outmanned” when you spawn if there were a significant number of enemies within combat range and therefore in your spawn area… At this point I suggest it would be time to file a report on cheating!

Miko: I think we’re looking at two different things. Map wide, I could agree with you. If you are unfortunate enough to face a server with many more players I can see how gaining supply (you won’t have many camps) and having the NPCs scale in your map might help.

I was suggesting something that isn’t map wide but local – just combat range. This would mean that in 1v1 or 1v2 combat no one would be buffed so I don’t really understand your comment about 1v1v1 being unfair with players being over powered.

My idea was specifically about helping the players to survive when outmanned. If you boost the NPCs across a map based on the map-wide population of servers you could end up unfairly penalising solo players.
Consider a solo roamer that has come onto the map where their 20 player team is running around. A map wide buff to NPCs would put this player at a disadvantage – they now have a harder time capping a camp simply because some of their team mates are busy elsewhere. Somehow this doesn’t seem fair.
With my idea of a localised player buff, a few defenders would have a better chance of standing up to the 20 player group, while not affecting anyone else on the map, for any of the servers. This seems much fairer all round.

For a spawn camping situation, a group of five players would trigger the new outmanned buff for a single player or a pair trying to break out. It wouldn’t trigger for a group of 3 or more – but then this many players has a better chance of dealing with a group of five. The more campers you have the more resilient a single player would be. If the odds become more even outmanned would scale down or stop. Isn’t this an improvement?

The most common argument being presented against this idea seems to be “we shouldn’t buff players because it will be unfair”. We can already stack might, and some builds can reduce damage. I’m simply suggesting similar buffs be automatically made available for players when they are facing overwhelming odds.

Added thought – NPCs should not count towards the buff trigger (I don’t think they would as it stands but perhaps it needs to be made clear for this suggestion).

You probably didn’t notice but ET was already on their way up before the server linking. They had good coverage and plenty of active players in a range of time zones. The only reason they were still in T8 was because of the glicko cliff they had been climbing for weeks.

So whichever higher tier server got ET was always going to gain a boost.
Now look at T1 at the time of linking. BG were in 3rd place. You can’t give them AR – linking bottom with bottom doesn’t look right, and then you’d have to put AR with YB (first place) or JQ (second place). Anet matched 1-3, 2-2 and 3-1 so that it would even the populations.

And then BG woke up a bit…
and ET carried on playing well…

Also bear in mind that the current matches are changing faster than ever before. It’s not so long ago that players were posting about how stagnant T1 was and how it was all rigged to keep other servers out. That’s certainly not true now. Be careful what you wish for here – Anet read these posts.