Guild Wars 2

Blockhead Magee.3092:

They need to improve their logic. Quit working from the top down and work to keep such massive glicko separation in a matchup from happening (unless their is simply no other choice).

The problem is just that, there is no other choice with the way things are right now. The difference between servers even 1-2 ranks separate are just that big.

At this stage, they would need to completely rework the entire WvW game mode (points, coverage, 6+vs6+, siege, etc++) in order to make this work with the populations and population disperancy.

Because no matter how you try to shuffle servers around. there are at this stage 7 “gold” servers. In matches of 3 servers. Where does the 7th one go ? And there is a world of difference between server #7 and #8. So what are you going to do, tell server #7 that they can’t play at all this week ? Any system MUST place them in a match-up, but there are no good candidates. At all. And if the tell server #7 that they can’t play, then we’re a server short, so 2 other servers would also have to skip that week.

Also, the more #7 “farm” #8+#9, the greater chance they have (glicko) to not roll back into T3 the next week. If they just send 90% of their players to EotM for a week, and tries to play to an even score, they’re losing glicko rating like crazy, and will likely be stuck where they are. They don’t want that (and neither do you).

TLDR: Kitten if you do, and kitten if you don’t. Either ANet redesigns the whole basics of WvW, or players have to self police and even out population somehow.

Jski.6180:

T1 cant move and no one can get into T1 but ya sure work for T2 there room for it though i think it would be very hard to get there. Though i would mind seeing T2 and T3 become very competitive with the ability to move up and down with out having a no fight week.

Actually, if FA continues to dominate/beat both the other servers in T2 consistently they will slowly gain some points, and once they are within 200 glicko ratings of #1 server JQ, they can theoretically roll into T1. With the current score, there is 183 glicko separating them (mos mill predicted ratings), so it could happen. Just highly unlikely.

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

joneirikb.7506:

This is a player caused problem.

This is not a player caused problem, this is a Game Development caused problem – or rather a lack of rethinking the logic used.
If this is a player caused problem, perhas SBI and HoD might get better and compete against YB instead of letting YB roll them up.

I am not arguing that the “design” is perfect, it sure isn’t. But ANet didn’t advertise this as balanced and fair. Had WvW played out closer to what they gave the impression off on release, we might have ended with a server randomly having 200 players on a tuesday, and nobody on wednesday, since it was supposed to be a casual "PvPvE"ish mode.

But people started moving servers to stack servers and BandWagon. It’s natural, the system allows it, and it is in human nature to generally try to side with the winning team (even with nothing to gain it seems). And that is why we have the situation we have today.

But at the same time, you can’t expect players to police themselves. So yes ANet is going to have to eventually do something about it (either make a solution or simply discard entire WvW, or just go out and say that they’re not going to do anything about it, and that it is the players problem (which they can)). But knowing them, they will try to find a solution, they are just not rushing, and not implementing anything until they feel they got a solution that can work.

But the only option they have right here and now to “fix” this, is to take a bunch of players from YB, and stuff them over on HoD and SBI. Now would you like to play against say EBay and CD for example, and ANet comes and tells you “you got to many players, so your account is now being moved over to CD, thank you for understanding. This is in according with the user agreement you signed.”

There are no quick fixes. And anything implemented hastily will backfire. And it is the way it is, because of people. So what do you want them to do ?

Nope, we’re going ot stay in T6 for a while longer, even if we had the slightest chance of beating GoM/AR solidly enough to do so, which we won’t. We where over 200 glicko rating under GoM going into this week, so the glicko needs time to change out before anyone else can get thrown into higher tiers.

We’re having a VERY enjoyable match with AR/GoMmi Bears this week, it is as close as we have ever been in a match-up with our weird coverage. We got a good lead from a strong night cap on monday, and been living on that for the rest of the week.

Next week, GoM is going to learn from this week. And AR will get slightly over the new high of fighting GoM who comes out and fights them (they are in love), and they will both beat up a bit on Kaineng first, and then continue to play with each others, and we won’t have the same advantage in points again.

It will get even closer, and even more fun!

I hope we keep this match-up for a month!

PS: Come back here and protect your motherland you little Ronin!

Otokomae.9356:

joneirikb.7506:

It’s their choice if they want to or not. They’re not paid to be commanders after all. Nice if they do, no matter if they don’t.

Wait… you guys aren’t paying your Commanders?

Was thinking in real life money, not in game gold. But I guess we’re bad at that as well, though they tend to get offers of siege fairly often. In general though, my server been so disorganized that most of our active WvW population been Roamers, so we’re used to do things ourselves, and being poor :p

@Ragnar the Rock.3174

I both agree and disagree with you on this, I don’t think EotM is the solution, but that parts of it could be a part of the solution. The map while interesting also have its faults, and the cliff sides are not very popular with the vast majority of people I’ve seen so far (Necromancers excluded).

But what if, instead of falling down to die, you could fall down a good bit, take some fall damage, and have to walk a long way around again to get out of the "pit", the cliff sides would still be tactical and good tools, but not as punishing. Just an example, and it would make the EotM map look worse, this might be what they are aiming for with the new HoT map (Ziggurat).

I don’t think most people even realize we still have the WvW world bonuses to crafting etc. Perhaps up those a lot and make them WvW only ? And slap on good bunch of +% gold and MF. So we have to earn our rewards, but be able to get those high enough that we actually care?

@Kaiser.9873

It is because of how the glicko calculates the matches. (this is the simplified version, I’m no Glicko guru)

* Every server gets a RNG +/-100 temp glicko rating.
* This becomes the ratings for match-up.
* Which means that server #1 can’t be matched up with server 4 because of glicko differences.
* Server #1 takes #2+#3 as the only servers within its range.
* Same with #4, random up between 5,6,7. Let’s say 4+6+7 this week.
* Then server #5, kicked out of T2, no other servers in near glicko rating. So just grabs the next two in the list (8+9), as they are likely the closest (not close, closest!).
* The 8+9+10+11 ranked servers is separated by less than 21 glicko points last week, just imagine how much a +/-100 can alter that outcome!

There simply isn’t anyone else for them to be matched up with, and the Glicko starts at top and goes down. This means that the Top and Bottom tiers are always more stale than other tiers, since they have one less axis to move about with.

---

The only other alternative would be to do what, set server #5 up against T8 ? How do you think YB/BP/SF would fare ? Or should they make a own "reject tier" where the 3 servers that is just the most out of loop that week gets banished ? This week that would be YB+Mag+SoR ? I don’t think that would have been a fun match, and I don’t think the remaining reshuffled ranks would make for all that good matches either.

It isn’t simple a matter of saying "We don’t like the T2 server reject, take it away!" something has to be there, something has to fill in, and that server also has to go "somewhere". You can’t just say "sorry YB, you’re not allowed to play WvW this week, because you’re to big for T3."

If you feel the need to say something about this, instead of complaining about it, try to come up with ideas and solutions to how to change it. Perhaps ANet finally finds a new idea they can spin on and make a solution. They sure as kitten isn’t going to delete a server just because you don’t like playing against it and complain about it on the forum.

(That last part came out a bit more rude than I had anticipated, sorry, it wasn’t meant to be. I just don’t see the point in complaining about this the way many users do it.)

Curious, if we actually did get similar rewards to EotM in ordinary WvW, what would actually happen ? I know a lot of people think it will turn into EotM, but we already have that, and people will still be fighting and defending in normal WvW, so it would be much harder to K-Train than EotM.

Otokomae.9356:

joneirikb.7506:

Stazee.6749:

Simple. Make more smaller maps with the max number of players allowed reduced. 20, 30, 40, or w/e number seems right. I think it would be fairly fun to have 2 keeps a few camps, and 20v20 in that map.

I would absolutely love this. More different maps for different play styles. And a map like that would be really fun for small-medium groups.

Would we keep the same total population cap? For instance, if each server gets 80 people per map (4 x 80 = 320), would we now have to have 16 smaller maps with 20 people each? This might lower the size of zergs, but it seems like it would exaggerate the population imbalances we currently have, as any server with a less active WvW population could end up with completely empty maps, or 5v20 situations on 10 or more maps at once. Imagine trying to reclaim 16 full-capped maps each day when playing a server with a very strong non-NA timezone! Or are you simply talking about adding several more, smaller maps to the 4 maps we currently have? This seems like it would also make population imbalances much harder to overcome.

Well, a small map would definitively mess up a bit with the current map-population. I don’t really know how to add it into the current system, because it is so rigidly locked up because of the Home-map system (That I ranted on and on about in another thread, and how to remove that system). As is right now, it would sort of have to be another optional overflow map, same sort as EotM. Which wouldn’t be very popular I guess.

If I where to say where this fit in with the removal of Home-Map’s, it could fill a 4th map (EBG+BL+Ziggurat/HOT+1 Random) or in a rotation (EBG+BL +2 random maps, for ex EotM, Ziggurat, or this "roaming map"). For lower tier servers you might replace multiple maps with these smaller maps but still keep at least EBG and either BL or Ziggurat.

I really think we need to move to a dynamic map system, that can adjust it after the player base, and that also means doing something about the Home-Map system. Oh well, this is getting topic-derailed. But yes, population cap is serious business in WvW, DO NOT TOUCH! etc. I just want to see more variation in maps.

Otokomae.9356:

Valentinus.3412:

3. Actual, physical SOUND. Make it so that, the bigger the group the louder you are and the more sound travels. I’ve always found it a little disconcerting that large scale zergs make no sound until you are right on top of them!

This would especially funny when you consider how many WvW players play with the game sound OFF every time they enter WvW! I actually kinda like the idea of adding a "Stampede"-type of sound, so that you can hear zergs coming before you even see them.

I like this idea to. But I’m one of those that play with very low sound (because I have a low tolerance for sounds, and get headaches etc), and also play with friends who are deaf. So it would be *very* nice with some visual cues for this as well. Liked some of the ones you mentioned in the full post.

It’s their choice if they want to or not. They’re not paid to be commanders after all. Nice if they do, no matter if they don’t.

This is nothing new, this has been going on for months. It is not the fault of a bad match-up system. It is the fault that there are *4* servers to large for T3, but only 3 spots in T2.

Someone has to draw the unlucky draw and get the reject-T2 server every week. IoJ+NSP have drawn that lot for 2 months in a row.

until population somehow evens out, either by people stacking on some of the silver servers to make 2 of them equal in power to the T2 servers, or one or more of the T2 server depopulate to other servers to even out, this will go on.

And no changes to the random system, glicko, wvw, etc is going to change that.

This is a player caused problem.

I keep asking myself: "Why do upgrades even cost silver/gold?"

Just removing the gold cost from the upgrades would do a good bit for the economy of those that upgrade the most (scouts and defenders etc). Or might even make it some other cost, like Badges or who knows what.

Tried it on deleting a character and recreating it once, and nope it doesn’t work. Soulbound seems to be bound to the specific character, not the name (or class/race etc).

Stazee.6749:

Simple. Make more smaller maps with the max number of players allowed reduced. 20, 30, 40, or w/e number seems right. I think it would be fairly fun to have 2 keeps a few camps, and 20v20 in that map.

I would absolutely love this. More different maps for different play styles. And a map like that would be really fun for small-medium groups.

No white swords was a mixed blessing. Over a month later, and still pondering if I actually liked or hated it. I just don’t know, I enjoyed aspects of it, while at the same time was frustrated by other aspects.

One thought I am starting to enjoy, is to link it to Outnumbered, so an outnumbering server gets no white swords, but the outnumbered ones still get it.

Actually that thread used to be stickied a month or two back, but they seem to have cleaned up the stickies a bit again. Would also still love a "Map Completion" sticky as well, it gets asked almost every second day.

You can transfer to any server, as long as it is not full.

Do note that Jade Sea is a french dedicated server, so unless you’re fine with french you might want to reconsider (since Blacktide is a english/non-language-affiliated language server).

Remember that transfering cost Gem’s, so you either need to rill out the credit card, or farm gold and change it into gems. Alternatively you can delete all characters, then you get to pick server for free.

One good advice to changing servers is to try to find a server that offers a play style you enjoy or are interested in.

Sorry, I just have to: Queues ? What’s that ? I think I saw one for a few minutes sometime near August....

This might be why the are changing it ? Because they thought the buff was to powerful compared to how easy it was to get ?

I’m no GvG’er so don’t know just how useful it can be etc, but I always felt it was a "get out of jail for free" card in normal WvW.

Also we’re getting Resistance buff that negates all negative effects of condis, so we’re going to see some change anyways. I think this could be interesting.

What ? I think you misunderstand what he said in point 3.

Close down all 3 "Borders" (Read Borderland maps).

EBG still open, scoring still works, people can still play, just in 1 map instead of 4. For when the population is low.

And if one server is ticking for 40% of the PPT in EBG alone, that can still count the same as 40% of PPT over all 4 maps for Glicko rating. So the amount of points themselves isn’t that important.

Tom Gore.4035:

X T D.6458:

I thought they were just getting rid of post 80 skill points, either way the full heal/knockback on levelup should have been removed from wvw long ago.

You won’t get XP anymore when you’re level 80. But of course we don’t know if reaching a mastery point will have the same full heal/launch effect…

As Dhemize also said, The Mastery system is PvE, and shouldn’t affect WvW at all. We will probably still gain XP as normal, don’t know.

@One Prarie Outpost:

You don’t need to link Glicko directly to the amount of points, since shutting down all borderlands would remove equally much points from the server at the same time, you could have the glicko be based on the difference in point scoring, instead to the exact numbers. In short it could work the same with 1 or 5 maps.

Completely agreed with X T D. Just because I’m sick of fighting against Shadow Arts Thieves, doesn’t mean ANet should remove thieves (Though I’m not protesting if they do!)

Edit, and just because I have been literally dying to use this for days now…

http://i.imgur.com/HHl9csA.gif

I like these, they’re not perfect, but could bring some interesting and good changes. Looking forward to read some discussion on this.

Actually one other thing I really would want to see made into a Sneak Attack event would be No PvD. Remove player damage to doors. Force people to use siege or never get a tower etc. This would make defenders much more useful, they could actually fight off a large zerg as long as they could take out all the siege, stopping them from taking down the door.

styx.7294:

Hell, with the lousy reputation lower tier servers have (“dead servers” and the like), ArenaNet ought to give gems for transferring to the smallest WvW population servers.

Unless that comes with some severe restrictions, people would just transfer to a bronze server, wait a week, transfer again, until they built up enough gems to go to a server they wanted to go.

Good intention, bad execution

@DarkSyze.8627: Nice article, though GW2 is probably the MMO least affected by this.

Yes, GW2 is probably the least powercreep’y MMO game I’ve seen so far. They announcement that there will never be any higher level gear, never higher levels etc, certainly reinforces that. And people still win fights in full Exotics in WvW, over people with ascended and legendaries. So no problem.

Considering that they have to balance the classes over 3 different game types, I think their are pretty "fairly" balanced.

@Lord Kuru

The name Guild Wars is actually for background/lore/fluff reasons. Though it looks they want to strengthen that aspect a bit in the exp.

Tspatula.9086:

Aeolus.3615:

Belorn.2659:

I would like to see a server merge between EU and NA. More players, more 24/7 coverage, and a major change to t3/t2.

cant find eneught + to upvote, that is one of the best solutions, but i imagine the cost of merging those two :<

They could change also the WvW model.. they already have a Tyria map done, we need the 4th great guild wars

I know I have seen a dev response to this which unfortunately stated that there were technical reasons why EU and NA servers could not be merged…

Yes, specifically because the EU servers are separate physical servers in EU, and the US servers physically in US. This is also why you can’t “Guest” between US/EU servers, and why you can’t play with each others in MegaServer, or in EotM etc.

The only way they could fix that would be to merge the physical servers into one location. Which would increase lag to one or the other. If they moved all servers to US, then EU players would be forced to play on a server “over the pond”, which would give them a bit more lag. (Don’t know how much)

So, nope, this is not likely to ever happen.

X T D.6458:

morrolan.9608:

Remove aoe limits for 1 thing. ESO is doing this for exactly this reason.

The problem with removing or increasing the aoe limit is its a double edged sword, it will simply encourage more blobbing, because smaller groups will get hit more. If you can hit more targets so can the blob, how long do you think a smaller group will last then. And I cant see anet ever allowing players weapon/utility skills being able to hit 50 players at once.

Listen to X T D, he understand the consequences of knee-jerk solutions.

lordkrall.7241:

The difference is that PPK didn’t actually remove anything from the game. This would.
It would also make one of the main Warrior Elites in WvW completely useless, since you wouldn’t be able to Rally the downed people as an example.

Those should still work, when talking about “remove rally” I/we/most of us/etc talk about removing the “kill another player or npc while in downed state, to instantly get back on your feet”. Normal Downed state would still be there, you can still try to heal yourself up (if no one finishes you or whacks at you), other can still try to heal you up before you’re dead etc.

Just the “I use my downed skill that aoe hits 5 enemies, and hopes one of them dies so I instantly rallies”.

lil devils x.6071:

joneirikb.7506:

I do like this idea. it is something that have been discussed a good bit.

Generally it is an advantage to the smaller team in a fight, if up against a large group (a zerg), then each time they kill one of the outnumbered players, they can rally multiple of their own downed. While in most cases, it is hard to do it the other way around.

Numbers is protection in this game, also a much higher damage output.

Obviously skilled fighting guilds are an exception.

I disagree that it is the other way around, I use rally MORE when outnumbered intentionally because that is when you need it when outnumbered 5 to 1. You dont need it when you have a zerg there, as the zerg will still win either way.
It will not have an impact on the zerg, but will impact roamers and havoc much more.

It is correct that the outnumbered party have more of a USE/NEED for the rally, but in practical effect, the rally mechanic most of the time favours the larger group since they can focus kill an enemy downed player, and often rez every downed player they have. This makes attrition against a larger group very hard, since each person you lose from your group, has the potential to get 1-5 enemies back up.

If you play in a skilled fight group, like a good zerg busting guild, this has less impact, since you can keep your own players up most of the time, and focus down downed enemies well enough that it doesn’t become a big issue. I’ve also seen good players being able to kill and finish enemy players in order to try to rez one of their own downed etc. It is possible, but just really hard outside of those types of groups.

A large group can take a lot of deaths, and if they win, they can rez everyone afterwards. So attrition isn’t a big problem for them. A smaller group trying to rely on skill to take down a larger one, is not likely to get a chance ot rez anyone unless they kill all of them (or chase them away), and a single death can rally multiple enemies, and instantly turn that around. Removing Rally (or at least making it 1 for 1) will increase the chances for smaller groups to try to take on larger groups, without having to be zerg busting trained.

I don’t think we should remove the blob, it is a viable tactic in WvW and all that. (Coming from someone that hates zerging)

But if you read the OP’s post as “How to make other playstyles viable compared to blobing. Or how to give other players tools to deal with a blob.” then there is nothing wrong in that. Blobbing often have the habbit of turning into the “Deathstar”, and unless you have Luke Skywalker, R2D2 AND an X-Wing available, well though to be you.

Some of the most common responses I see: Send out your fight guild to kill them. Just go do something else. Proper defense with AC’s etc at a fully upgraded keep.

If you can do some of those then great. I’ve seen fighting guilds take down huge zergs (and it was awesome), I’ve seen some server split up into lots of 5 man groups and back capped everything faster than the zerg can take things (Also very awesome), and I’ve seen a single player hold of 10-15 people at Bay with only a cannon and a few AC’s for hours. (totally awesome). But these are not always possible for various reasons.

The game mechanics/combat system greatly favours numbers, so it is safer for players in a big group, lets them focus more firepower, takes objectives faster, and thus gives more rewards. So it is only natural that a lot of players gravitate towards blobs.

Now if we where to just add some “knee-jerk” responses to get rid of blob’s, I have a couple of funny ones:

• Slightly reduce the damage on AC’s (-10% for ex), but instead give them a +1% damage per enemy player caught in the aoe. And watch zergs melt. But be completely useless against 1-5 targets.
• Enable friendly fire (Guardian loot stick #1 go!)
• Enable Collision Detection between players (for even nastier effect, let this include dodge rolls)
• Change the Outnumbered bonus to give you *X stats based on how much you’re outnumbered, so 8 vs 80 gets all base stats *10. Then go around like superman and smash doors, insta kill players, and trash keep lords in 5 seconds. Not to mention Guardian Staff #1 lawn-mow entire enemy zerg.

But none of those would ever work in the game, without completely ruining any sort of balance, and completely remove a play style that a lot of players enjoy (blobs).

If you want to actually make combat against a blob somewhat feasible, that is harder. ANet will never drastically change stats or anything else that could affect a 1on1 situation. So they won’t buff you upp with +100, 200, 500 toughness or power etc. So any changes would have to work in a different way. The prime suspect here is Outnumbered buff, and make it do something that actually help you in a combat vs outnumbered.

Since one of the main advantages for many players to group together is for defence through target saturation, since near all aoe skills can affect max 5 targets, if you have 20 players only 1/4th is hit, and moving about another 1/4th can be hit on the next attack. How about a system that lets outnumbered players affect more enemies ? Say a +2 when outnumbered, so your AE suddenly affects 7 targets instead of 5. Let’s say the same with buffs, so if you use “Stand Your Ground!” 7 of your allies can get the stability bonus, making it easier for you to cope with the enemy numbers ?

Similarly another great advantage for huge group vs small group is more attacks, more skills that can target 5 of enemy players. What if we reduce this by -2 ? So all their aoe damages affects only 3 players instead of 5 ? Same with their buffs like “Stand Your Ground!” will only work on 3 players instead of 5, which might make it easier for small group to get past the crazy amount of stability and other buffs that the large group can spew out ?

What with supply ? How about the outnumbered bonus lets yo pick up +5 supply limit, so even out numbered you might have enough supply to build siege either in defence against their blob at a keep, or to build rams faster to back cap after them ?

I have no idea how this would play out, just trying to throw out some food for thought.

I do like this idea. it is something that have been discussed a good bit.

Generally it is an advantage to the smaller team in a fight, if up against a large group (a zerg), then each time they kill one of the outnumbered players, they can rally multiple of their own downed. While in most cases, it is hard to do it the other way around.

Numbers is protection in this game, also a much higher damage output.

Obviously skilled fighting guilds are an exception.

What Osu said.

Depending upon, it could be nice to make the glicko shift a bit faster, so we don’t see servers getting stuck in tiers they no longer belong in for as long as we do now. But I’m sure there are some drawbacks to that as well.

But people are complaining for both sides of the fence. Some wants to only be matched up against the closest 3 or so servers to avoid blowouts. While others want more variations so they can get out or boring or stale match-ups (Poor tier 3).

No matter which they pick (if any), lots of people going to be angry.

Svarty.8019:

Videles.6759:

Make the outnumbered buff dynamically. Are you outnumbered 3 to 1 then every character should be as strong as three players. Als reduce the amount of supplies needed by the outnumbered team dynamically. This at least in some way equalizes it is a bit

Okay, I think we all know this can’t work – it would encourage people to tell allies to log off in order to “fudge” the population stats, discouraging the less-able members of your team and making the whole scene elitist (which, for the record, it isn’t now).

I still believe

• the spreading of a resource (it could be guards, supply, or something else) to be a good, solid concept. The more you own, the more difficult it would be to maintain it all. There is a danger this could lead to a similar effect as the above, where players tell others NOT to capture objectives. That said, I think it’s a more elegant solution to the change of circumstances based on active players at any one time.
• a much more powerful and interesting metric could be used to great effect in bringing the scores closer together. The metric would be “Who is leading at any one time”. By measuring this, Arenanet are able to implement systems to effectively slow down that team’s scoring (this would mean closer, more exciting matches come Friday), as you can no doubt imagine.

I will let you stew over these two wonderful ideas what fell out of the brains of the community and were swept under the sofa because they aren’t as simple as server merges.

These ideas don’t solve the population problem, they disguise and mitigate it. It’s still an issue, but might not mean that matches are already decided by any given Monday.

Like this post.

Depending on how large population you’re interested in, anything T4 or lower.

The lower in ranks you go, the less players all over, and the more you will notice coverage differences. Most of the silver servers can still que maps regularly at prime time, but still got some more or less quiet borderlands where a roamer can go to be useful. If you go all the way to the bottom bronze you will find some decent numbers in prime time, and very quiet outside of that.

So plan out how much enemies you really want to see before picking a server.

Example my own server Kaineng is very active on roaming, we have low NA prime presence, but all round good presence outside of that, and good at night cap. We roam because that is what is left, most of the big organized guilds have left, and the old core of Kaineng players have turned mostly into roamers.

@Coglin

To be fair, I assume he meant something more along the line of giving a % boost per enemy outnumbered (And % of that again etc), instead of just multiplying power etc with the number of players. Which would be much less drastic. But I agree it would still be a bad solution.

Just for the fun of numbers though, if I was that solo roamer, on my guardian with full cele, and say my power was 1500 blank for simplicity, if multiplied by 40, that is power 60 000. At that stage I think I could one-shot virtually any enemy with any power based attack. It would also be the day I stopped using rams, auto attack on staff would smash that door much faster.

Mostly curious how many Staff #1 hits I’d need to kill the castle lord with that...

@Coyote:

I do agree that WvW is inherently flawed, and it basically forces players to make their own rules/restrictions in order to get a balanced match-up.

I don’t really know exactly what ANet wanted with this game mode, what their goals and design was based on. But I do get the feeling that they wanted it to be a whole lot more casual than what we currently see.

As such, I’m wondering, what would happen if we removed PPT ? and points entirely ?

I don’t even know what that would do to the game mode, but perhaps people would take it less serious, and just go play what they wanted to ? Or perhaps it would just turn into another EotM with no rewards.

I think ANet wanted their sPvP to be their serious competitive mode, and WvW to be the sort of relaxed place where PvP people could go to not take things to seriously, and PvE players could go to get a small taste of PvP in an environment they would be familiar with. And the whole points thing was just a way to channel people towards something.

Dunno. But I really do wonder what ANet’s design plan was for WvW. It is clearly not what it turned into, since they seem to be completely flabergasted what to do with it.

I think that if they raised the cap on custom PvP maps to 15 or 20, it would solve a lot of smaller issues around the game.

Johje Holan.4607:

Merging servers nor reducing pop map caps is not something that can be done temporarily. Really nothing that I can think of that would affect actual population can be attempted temporarily.

So these temp changes would need to be things that attempt to mitigate the imbalance. Or scoring type changes.

Some things I can think of:

* Give an incentive to attack the stronger/winning server. Could be more rewards or more score or a combination for taking the winning servers assets.

* Increase rewards/points for attacking the stronger/winning servers Home BL.

* Reduce the rewards/points for taking unupgraded structures. And/Or increase the rewards/points for taking upgraded structures.

* Give more rewards for player kills and less for taking a structure. (Could be combined with the previous suggestion).

* Turn off rezzing in combat.

* Turn off rally.

* Turn off downed state completely - oh yeah I said it.

Agree with these.

An actual reward or reason to attack the leading server. More rewards (karma, gold, xp, wxp, ppt points, dunno), or other bonuses for fighting against them. Say that bloodlust and other stack mechanics only worked against the top server, that could get weird.

Just beware that making an object be worth more with more upgrades can further help the dominant server. But if an object does not give more points for upgrading and gives more points for taking, people are going to stop upgrading. Very tricky.

Disabling one of Rez/Rally/Downed could be very interesting and greatly change how the game is played. This is probably my favourite suggestion for Sneak Attack (suggesting remove Rally).

Videles.6759:

Make the outnumbered buff dynamically. Are you outnumbered 3 to 1 then every character should be as strong as three players. Als reduce the amount of supplies needed by the outnumbered team dynamically. This at least in some way equalizes it is a bit

They will never add mechanics that changes the playing field of a 1on1 much. If they did that, it would create some really crazy situations in the game, and probably drive away large parts of the people interested in actually fights in WvW. Just imagine how this would affect single roamers taking camps in enemy borderland, if the home server got 20 people in citadel, and 20 out patrolling and guarding etc. That single roamer is strong as 40 man ?

Do like the idea of outnumbered affecting supplies though, increasing the supply limit for outnumbered means that less people can still use siege (both for roaming, and defending etc).

Dawdler.8521:

Megamap, heh.

IMO they should just simplify the WvW maps:

- Keep EB mostly as is (a visual tune up wouldnt hurt) but move traders/crafters from borders there. EoTM supplies are given to EB rather than borders.
- Keep _one_ border, which should be the border for the server that is currently ranked highest out of the 3. This is the server "defending" after all. Again, a visual tune up wouldnt hurt.
- Make the new WvW map into a dynamicly expanding map. Lets say 0-3 open, each much reach 80% population before another one open. If population remain under a very low percentage, it will close down and people shuffled previous map. In this map, holding objectives (as in actually standing on them) gets server WvW points, not just taking keeps and abandoning them. Basicly, they function like the bloodlust caps.

If you move traders/crafters to EBG, you will get more people going to that map to create a queue, was pondering the same for the above, but realized it would probably have a negative impact for those that want to play the EBG wars.

Also so far I thought it made the most sense to keep the "red" BL, so the weaker server in a match-up gets a slight advantage. To encourage a bit more fair fights.

Good ideas though, I think that could be interesting. I think a lot of players would get bored of idling over objectives pretty fast though. And it still makes for a bunch of the issues I posted above in regards to more/less maps with PPT, Glicko, Uppgrades, kicking players etc.

Dawdler.8521:

And there you have it. No wall of text :p

Awww, I almost feel hurt by that

coglin.1867:

So if you want to discuss the solution to that topic in which you quoted a post. why didn’t you do so there, instead of trashing up the front page of the sub forums with yet another thread on the same topic?

Particularly since the topic was created by the forums specialist?

First of all: yay! First time coglin is dissing on my posts, I finally feel like I’m one of the gang now! (Do I get to learn a secret hand shake or something ?)

* Because that thread is already getting plenty derailed.
* Because I wanted to discuss this idea in more detail
* without all the other things flying about in that thread (server merging for one).
* Because I think this idea could be used for more/different things than what lil talked about in that thread
* Now just imagine how messy it would be with me posting 3 posts in that thread, which is already a mess reading through ?

Now I apologize for my seemingly inability to force posts under 5000 or even 10000 words. I really wanted to, I really tried...

* This can still limit play styles depending on situations. (to few to spawn a BL, or so many that you run into large groups everywhere)

Yes, obviously if the server doesn’t have enough numbers to even spawn a second map, or during night time the population is to small to even have a zerg of 20+, those that want to play in zergs or other big groups will be disappointed. Similarly, If we got 50 players on my server, and 60+ on the two other servers, we will still be stuck in only EBG, and I can’t go anywhere else, nor really small party roaming. It isn’t perfect, and it can still limit some options and play styles at times.

---

Optionals:

* Add a single BL to the Base EBG, to retain play-styles and map-selection, this would help a lot for low tier servers not getting stuck on EBG. Might rotate this map ?

---

I’ve struggled for hours to force this into *only* 2 posts, in the end I realized I’m getting so tired, that I just gave up. Sorry for having to let you suffer through 3 pages of my kitten.

---

TLDR: Words are OP, nerf words before they kill my brain.

Note1: Just to be get this out of the way, as you know, I’m still against server merging.
Note2: I’m trying to be less verbose by putting things into bullet points, it doesn’t work.

-Elrik, the overly verbose.

Disadvantages:

* Well, I would sure hate trying to roam at night time with this. My server would own entire EBG, and I’d have no BL map to go to instead.
* In certain configurations of populations, this could create some silly queues.
* Several low tier servers might feel constricted by being stuck only EBG (Optional solution to this)
* The Overflow maps might not get very popular to upgrade on, as most would expect them to disappear at night.
* Writing all this is making me very tired, and I’m probably forgetting a few, please fill them in for me.

---

To detail some more upon some of the issues:

* How would PPT work with multiple maps ?

Considering all 3 servers have the same amount of maps, I don’t see a problem with this, just add all together. This means that different tier matches will get wastly different points over the week, though I see no clear problem with that.

One interesting consequence of this would be that in general less maps during off time would generate less PPT all over, compared to the Prime time with perhaps 4-5 maps generating PPT. This would make Prime time more valuable. This has its good and bad sides. One one hand it actually makes Prime time more relevant, and at the same time does not actually cheapen the off hours PPT by making PPT reductions or other "nerfs" posted before. Would really appreciate some discussion on this one.

---

* How would the PPT from multiple maps work with Glicko rating ?

I’m not entirely up to date on how the PPT transfers into Glicko, but I assume that it takes the percentile difference between the servers and uses for Glicko ratings. If so, it should work the same.

---

* How to handle kicking players from collapsing maps ?

This one can get a bit more tricky, players tend to get rather irate when they see the auto-kicker even on build updates. My suggestion is to have a global text warning on the screen, say 15, 10, 5, 1 minute before, and then forcefully exit the players, either to another map or to LA. Close entry so no new players can enter this map. This should give people enough time to know when to stop at the nearest tick for PPT etc, and know when it won’t be of any use any-longer.

---

* How to handle PPT and upgrades from collapsing maps ?

This one is even more tricky. Obviously a server can get mighty annoyed if the map they are controlling is removed, while the enemy keeps a map that they have a huge lead in. Same with upgrades, if your server have upgraded entire EBG, and my server has upgraded entire BL, then BL gets removed your server will obviously sit in a good position. Both in PPT and in having a good defensive position. I don’t think there really is a perfect solution to this, so it is a case of chose your poison I guess.

---

* This would greatly reduce the amount of maps to defend and attack during off hours, but not remove the 24/7 problem.

This would typically reduce most servers down to a single EBG during most off hours. Now this have its good and bad sides. A server with a strong night force will still dominate that EBG, while the other servers will be left with skeleton crew. Sure there is less points total to lose this way, but there is also less places to run away to and try to grab camps etc when you’re sick of fighting against 40 enemies.

Also the PPT amounts of Prime vs Off that I mentioned in the first issue.

---

* This would greatly expand the amount of maps for active servers in prime time, but not reduce Queues unless both server are identical in size. (Normal EotM still an option here)

If you get a poor match-up, or servers with wildly disappropriate coverage, you can actually end up making more queues this way (A prime example of this would be our match-up this week, which is just silly: Kain/FC/SoR, and absolutely not a good example for anything in this game. Love them guys though). Say for example that one of the servers in your match-up had a "kitten " day, and less than 60 players actually showed up in Prime time, all 3 servers would get locked into a single EBG.

This limitation could potentially be gamed, though it would be harder than most give it credits for. How many servers have control over their pugs ? And it would still allow a full 80 on EBG no matter what.

Another option would be to base it off the middle server, if basing it on the smallest server would be to limiting. Or an average calculation of all 3 servers. There are multiple options here.

I picked up this post from the other thread (the: WvW report on Unbalanced Match-ups) and like the base idea, but wanted to discuss this further so I decided to make a own thread about it, as to avoid cluttering up the existing thread further.

lil devils x.6071”

In regards to the population issue, I think the only permanent solution outside of removing servers all together is to reduce the number of servers to 3-6 servers, since they only have 24 hour coverage for 6 servers, then add more active maps to cover the increased population playing at the same time. They can have stable maps that are always active and " event maps" that appear only when all servers reach a specific number in ques for bonus ppt. This would allow for more players to be playing at once per server, not crash since they are on different maps, reduce server stacking as their will be ques if everyone is on one server since all maps would have to que before the bonus maps appear and allow for there to be enough maps reduced ques during peak hours and also not have too many maps to cover during non peak hours.

As follows:
1) Have stable maps that are up all the time.
2) Have bonus ppt event maps that become available when all servers reach a specific number in que for a specified amount of time.
3) Combine all servers into 3-6 servers since only 6 servers have the population for 24 hour coverage.

Problems solved:
1) no more ghost town servers, players will always be able to have people to play with when they are on.
2) balanced matchups.
3) less ques but also able to hold more population per server.
4)reduce server stacking
5) doesn’t crash maps since the map pop stays the same but allows for more players to play on one server at once
6)Allows for less targets to cover during slow times, more targets to cover during peak times
7)Allows for people in all time zones to be able to enjoy the game equally.

What I really like in your post, is the idea to adjust the number of maps to the amount of players. I’ve been pondering a similar idea just the other way around, to reduce the amount of maps for lower tier match-ups. But reading your version of this, I find no reasons why it could not be combined into one system. Monster, I name thee MegaMap! (Or MegaZord: If anyone spawn the 5th map, all maps combine into MegaZord and kills all players).

So combining a bit of ideas from both of us, here is a base idea of how it could work:

• Note1: I’m using the idea I posted before to remove the “home-map” idea from the game, so a Borderland is a 3 way map just like EBG, to make the adding and removing plausible.
• Note2: I’ve added numbers to be used as examples, so don’t keelhaul me just because you don’t like them :p

Population:

• Base number X: 60 (This is the number used in average over all maps to open a new map.)
• Base number Y: 40 (This is the number used in average over all maps to close an existing map.)
• Adding and removing maps are based on the server with the lowest population

Maps:

• All match-ups start with a Base-Map: EBG
• As the Population increases, add more “overflow” maps, example order: BL, Ziggurat, EotM, EBG2…
• As the Population decreases, remove “overflow” maps, either in backward order, or the one with the least pop.
• Game makes an announcement before and when a new map opens or is removed. (example the yellow text in Silver Wastes)

Issues:

• How would PPT work with multiple maps ?
• How would the PPT from multiple maps work with Glicko rating ?
• How to handle kicking players from collapsing maps ?
• How to handle PPT and upgrades from collapsing maps ?
• This would greatly reduce the amount of maps to defend and attack during off hours, but not remove the 24/7 problem.
• This would greatly expand the amount of maps for active servers in prime time, but not reduce Queues unless both server are identical in size. (Normal EotM still an option here)
• This can still limit play styles depending on situations. (to few to spawn a BL, or so many that you run into large groups everywhere)

Advantages:

• A dynamic MegaMap! system will be a good step toward handling shifting populations, almost regardless of the server size.
• It will hopefully adjust maps so a certain mass of players is to be found at any given time. Thus encouraging player interaction and fights.
• While hopefully at the same time encourage as many different play styles as possible for as many players as possible.
• A MegaMap! system would also make it easier for ANet to work on new maps for WvW, and not be constrained by the existing rigid setup of maps. This could let them focus on new and different types of maps (to encourage more play styles, see examples in one of my other big rant threads).

No idea what comes with the Heroic edition, but shouldn’t skins unlock to the accounts wardrobe ? And at least everything I’ve bought on the gem store is account bound. And if he bought soul bound equipment etc, they usually don’t cost to much (at least not compared to transfer gems). Ah well, probably something I can’t think off.

The optimal solution would be that the two of us could play on the same server, but play the style each of us enjoyed. So that you could have your big EBG battles, and I could have my small group roaming in borderlands without getting blobbed down etc.

The way the maps and system works right now, server merges would kill some of that. There are definitive things that could be done to change that, but it would require ANet to put resources and time into restructuring several parts of the core system of WvW, and put in a couple of alternative maps for more play modes to be satisfied (with different rules, like say a borderland map with max cap 40 etc).

@lil devil x

I do agree with you, new players should not be forced to pick servers the first time they enter the game, without any information or knowledge about their choice. And I do find the whole GEM transfer costs to be a big bother for something I believe they do automatically.

* Don’t make people choose server until they:
* Walk into WvW for the first time
* Join a guild, open box asking if you want to join same server as guild

* Give people at least 1 free transfer afterwards, for example tied to joining guild.

* Reduce the gem costs to something anyone can handle, say 5$

Also, can’t really say I agree with WvW being competitive. But that is probably a matter of perspective and opinion. I wouldn’t mind letting people actually guest to other servers and try WvW there, I realize there would be a bunch of people trying to troll and sabotage that way though. I just don’t think people should take winning in WvW so serious, it is a game, and the way WvW is designed it will never really be competitive.

PS: Remind him that if he has only played for a couple of days/weeks etc, stuff all his things in the bank, delete characters, and transfer for free. I do hope he ends up somewhere he can enjoy.

Continued, because I’m overly verbose...

"PariahX-6970"

Given the current population levels and interest in WvW I really don’t see how ANET could have a 5th map work unless they’ve got some big merger / alliance plans, half of which a good portion of the WvW community might hate

I’m guessing that you’ve seen it elsewhere already, but just for safety: ANet is not adding Ziggurat as a 5th map. It is intended as a new Home-Borderland map, to "somehow" rotate with the other maps. So no worries there.

"Kaiser-9873"

My only worry would be that one or two maps would be more static due to how hard they are to attack leaving more people trying to push into the easy map and EBG. It would, however, make the reset weekend very interesting.

Yes, maps are different (that is part of the charm). But I think (and hope) that different players would gravitate toward different maps. Say that the Ziggurat becomes a very defensible map with lots of siege, People that like that would gravitate towards that map. While players that prefer more skirmishing and roaming would still gravitate towards the BL. And Zergs and other bigger groups would still prefer EBG.

So even if the Ziggurat map might be more defensible, that could very well make it more attractive for one of the zergs to take parts of it, knowing that a few dedicated defenders can hold it against much larger enemies, for more PPT. It just might actually bring a bit more strategy into the game mode.

"Kaiser-9873"

I would be okay getting rid of the current BLs altogether, and making a giant EotM map that actually meant something, the new map, plus EBG.

This accomplishes a few things right off the bat. It will condense players into three maps instead of four. EotM is large enough that you could greatly increase the queue size for it over the normal borderlands. Then you would have the new map plus EB. This would make for some epic clashes, and some seriously intense defenses. EotM is a fun map to fight on, when fighting actually occurs. The concentration of the 3 servers forces on 3 maps instead of 4 will also make it feel more fast-paced over the current meta imo.

Not a bad idea, but I have two reservations against it. (1) Not all servers would enjoy losing a map and have the population to use that map, and (2) There is a whole lot of prejudice about the EotM map, because of the EotM Game-mode. If we where limited to 3 maps, and one of them was EotM, I suspect many servers would not make proper use of that map, with players refusing to go there etc.

If it at least was the 4th map, there would still be 3 maps for everyone else to work with, and those that wanted could go to the EotM map. I still don’t think any servers consistently que 4 maps, outside of perhaps a couple of hours after week-reset.

---

Thank you all for replies!

Sorry forgot to respond to some of this earlier.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

I never liked the running simulator bl maps are, so I’d love to see different maps.

Johje Holan.4607:

Yeah hopefully the new map is not a "home" BL that’s just copy/pasted 3 times. Hopefully its a single map that all servers play on like EB.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually like the BL better than EB. Its just that there’s not enough people anymore to have 3 home BLs. They’re mainly empty wastelands nowadays.

If we got the existing borderland condensed from 3 maps into just 1, I think we would actually avoid some of that, it would play out a bit more like "mini-EBG" where each server would want to try to defend their side’s "home keep". My guess/prediction is that it would have turned into a much more hectic skirmish map.

The new HoT map (Ziggurat!) is designed to be a "home BL" map, but if they decided to change away from the Home-map system, they would still have time to change that. But from the sound of things, it sounds more specialized into the role of Home-map than the borderland is.

We will see

PS: PariahX, I snipped your text for brevity:

"PariahX-6970"

Rotation

As you said, this is unknown as of yet. I can see all 3 BL’s changed to Ziggurat for the first week at least, to let everyone get to test the new map. After that who knows, depending on how the map plays, if it is more defensive than the existing BL it might be given to red each week. Or just randomly assigned to 1-2 servers each week.

"PariahX-6970"

We don’t know yet if all accounts will have access to the new HoT WvW map (Ziggurat works for me but HoT is shorter) or only those that purchase the expansion pack.

True, but I honestly don’t see how they can make this work without giving access to Ziggurat/HoT map to everyone, or are they going to split the WvW population ? What happens if my server gets the new map and I don’t have the ExpPack, am I not allowed to defend my Home-map ? Or am I going to be put alone in a own copy of the old BL ? Just don’t see how that would work, so I’m making the assumption that it will be available for everyone.

"PariahX-6970"

We also don’t know what if anything ANET has up their sleeves to address the population imbalance issue. I am optimistically hopeful HoT or the spring balance patch will do something to help with that but I’ve been burned so many times in the past already that I be wont be holding my breath.

Only ANet can tell, and I won’t derail my own thread to this topic.

"PariahX-6970"

One possible solution would be to have only 3 maps to chose from, EB, new HoT and a borderland conglomeration which would be bigger size wise

I agree to the part of having EBG+Ziggurat+BL+1 as a map selection for a match-up. But re-designing the Borderland to much would be to much to ask for. Designing and working on maps is something ANet have stated is time consuming and takes a lot of workers. I am trying to make this idea be as economically viable as possible for them, and give them options for growth later on. There are lots of things that could be done to the BL map, but not without radically changing the map. Going away from the Home-map system, would however allow future maps to be added to rotation, and to be designed differently than the current ones.

"PariahX-6970"

Another way ANET could go would be to keep the three identical borderlands as is and have 3 maps that rotate in the center position of EB. The current EB map, EotM map (with a slight change) and the new HoT map.

The main problem with this idea, is that the only static thing we get in a match-up is the 3 BL’s. And the most popular map EBG would be randomly in and out.

EBG needs to be in each match-up,it is to important a map in the WvW system, and I don’t think any other map really can replace it. And this comes from someone that largely avoids EBG like the plague, but I understand it’s importance, and the goal of this idea was to give more different play-styles at the same time, not removing them randomly.

And if EBG got replaced by EotM map for a week, I honestly think a huge amount of players would quit. Both for the loss of EBG, and for all the negative pre-judice against EotM. If they add EotM to the normal map rotation (and I really want them to do that), it would have to be instead of one of the 3 BL’s, and it could not be a Home-map. Again just imagine how much people would rage at having to "defend" EotM as a Home-map, with all the prejudice we have against the map.

Hmm, it is probably a bit more than that to be honest, consider my previous post a sort of "minimum" sort of thing. And as said, EBG is usually lively enough, but I’m so rarely there myself, so I can’t say I have anything near proper numbers for that. And the EBG group(s) often map jump to save home BL, or do a quick raid on enemy BL etc, so numbers do happen.

Lots of different reasons as to why. Some have server pride, others have what I call Server Lazyness (to lazy to change server, doesn’t care enough about it), lots just likes it where they are because of friends and guilds, some enjoy the low population (roaming specifically). I can’t say how many are of each, no idea.

For myself, I’ve server hoped a lot over the years since GW2 was released, because I play with friends in both EU and US, and the stupid guesting and megaserver won’t let me jump over the pond!

Ended up on Kaineng which was the cheapest US server to transfer to at the time. But I never played WvW until I ended up on Kaineng, and now I don’t want to move, because I like the crazy lot I play with. Also lucky enough, I like roaming and small group fighting (and fall asleep during zergs), so I sort of hit the jackpot.

Kaiser.9873:

roamzero.9486:

Instead of merging low pop servers they should merge BL maps. 3 BL maps +SM is too much for low tiers.

Make it 1 BL + SM + New HoT map.

In my earlier post I pointed out I’ve never been below T5, but what do the BLs really look like below T5? Is it more time of day(I’m guessing OCX/SEA) when you don’t see many players, or more often than that?

Would it make sense to get rid of BLs altogether, and make one large map(not EotM, but kind of like that) for the players to congregate on? Maybe like a mixture of EotM and EBG?

Eh, it depends a lot upon the server. I’m on Kaineng and we got one of the games weirdest coverages, so we’re a horrible example.

But in general from what I’ve spotted from the others servers I’ve played against:

• Prime time home BL usually have at least 10-20 around.
• Prime time enemy BL usually have at least 1-5 around.
• Non Prime time home BL anywhere from 1-10
• Non Prime time enemy BL anywhere from 0-5

This is just a very rough generality, every server have their differences, take into consideration that weekends have a bit more, and week-days a bit less, usually.

EBG is a chapter for itself, and usually have the largest amount of players, many servers can still Que EBG especially on reset.

PS: If you want to see the games weirdest Coverage match-up, take a look at our current match-up. Kaineng vs FC vs SoR. It’s haywire. All of us have completely different coverage, and none of us have what would be considered a “normal” coverage. (We’re probably the games most quiet servers in terms of PvF…)

Marmatt.8590:

I know this has been mentioned a few times in this thread, but how would you feel about a “trail run” of said changes? Such as removing the white swords in WvW. Which change would you like see implemented first? Why?

To many to mention, and I have to admit half of them just out of pure sadistic glee. I’ll let others fill them out, just take them with a grain of salt. A lot of us makes personal wishes and some times wishes that would right out harm other servers but not ones own etc. Rule of thumb: if multiple people mentions same idea, it is worth pondering.