Is ANET's definition of winning in WvW part of the problem?

tl; dr - ANET defined the win condition (advance up a tier) and controls who gets to win (sever locking); so let's change the "win" condition.

I would argue that the player population segregated by the tier system creates the imbalances within WvW. It is the artificial "gating" that is the root cause for many of the frustrations we rant about -- population imbalances, lop-sided matchups, server stacking, server tanking, stale fights, etc. The tool we need to "win" in WvW (which is player recruitment) is not within the community's control. And all of this is because "winning" is defined as a server moving up or down the tiers.

So......

Part 1 - remove the artificial gates, move towards a true "R/G/B" matchup (faction/alliance/battle groups?)

Instead of the current 4 Tiers, I propose 3 territories - Tyria, Elona & Cantha (for lack of a better naming system) and each territory contains the familiar 4 maps - Red, Green, Blue borderlands and the Eternal Battleground. With this in place, remove the current tier boundaries (which serves as a method for population control) so that any world server can fight on any "territory" map (R/G/B/EBG) at ANY TIME throughout the weekly matchup.

By allowing servers to fight across 12 maps, against any potential adversary, removes a large part of the frustration within WvW. You're not fighting the same guilds week to week. You're not stuck in mismatched fights that were lost the moment the matchup reset. You can pull from a larger resource pool for help against overwhelming map armies. Server linking is no longer necessary to help balance the population. The weekly fight is now the true representation of the WvW player population without the virtual boundaries created by the tier structure.

Now, recognize that this solution does not create "fair fights" (always equal numbers); nevertheless, increasing the pool of available players on each side should help to reduce the impact of population imbalances.

Server "stacking" for the good fights is no longer important, the ability to find the "good fights" are the same for every server. You want your Guild back together? There's no reason to stack on Blackgate when you can find the same fights from Isle of Janthir under this concept.

Part 2 - change the "win" condition

Since it appears that WvW tournaments are out (for the time being) matchup "wins" are really just about the loot. How do you measure the matchup win if there's still the red / green / blue matchup?

Do what other sport do and create a handicap system; a measurable metric that you perform against each week. I propose using the server's KDR as a measurement of your servers "expected" fighting abilities.

For example - if the server KDR for the previous week was 0.987 that will become your "expected" metric for the current week.

Now each skirmish comes down to "are you fighting above your weight class"?

1) 1st place chest bonus - do better than you KDR handicap metric2) 2nd place chest bonus - match the target KDR range3) 3rd place chest bonus - missed your KDR goal, sorry

Each skirmish PIP chest bonus is based on your current server KDR performance versus the "expected KDR" metric for the week. At the end of each weekly matchup, the server's KDR "handicap" resets and that number becomes the predicted KDR for the next week. A handicap system removes some of the frustration created by population and/or time zone imbalance. Basically, servers are constantly fighting to improve their own performance (make "server pride" great again) instead of beating an opponent they are overmatched against.

Well, what about PPT? Victory point, etc. still works. But the "PPT win" goes to every servers in the winning "color" (faction/alliance/battle group?). I suggest a win buff, similar to the guild WXP buff that provides a 20% magic find bonus for next week in WvW. Winning PPT is still important and the overall WvW rewards improve. PPT still rewards the side that capture map objectives with better loot drops, KDR rewards the servers with better fighters (more PIP chest).

How does this solve the Off NA prime time zones? I believe the dramatic shift in population during off NA prime is the true WvW problem. But in this scenario, the off hour capture of PPT objectives only helps the "win buff". Since the PIP chest bonuses are tied directly to your actual play time (skirmish), your time in the game has more influence on the PIP chest rewards during the skirmish than any off prime hour play.

What keeps someone from "tanking" to lower their handicap? Well, the handicap adjusts weekly so if a server tanks to drop their KDR and then stages a "comeback" the KDR goes up too. It basically averages out over time and become self-regulating.

Final thoughts -

A lot of the forum solutions demand ANET put in more controls, rules, limits, etc. I don't think that works so let's remove some of the restrictions (tier gating) . Server locking keeps the player population from pursuing a winning strategy so let's change the win condition and let the players have more control over the "good fight".

The problem with any sort of increased reward, is that people will just exploit it. It's sort of how we ended up with the server problems we have now. Those that take more objectives and kill more people rank faster and get more stuff. Hence, people bandwagoned (or were bought) so that certain servers would always win. The greater the reward, the greater the exploitation.

PPT is a terrible metric to use to define winning. It propagates players to play the game in ways which are not fun. However KDR is an equally bad metric to use to define, or possibly worse.

We're all familiar with the ways in which PPT is not enjoyable. Taking unguarded objectives, avoiding fights, upgrading and sieging up towers and keeps. Waiting for enemy forces to go to bed then k-training.

But KDR? That promotes only fighting when you have superior numbers, better position. And avoiding all other fights. The servers with high KDR are not the servers with the most skilled players. They are the servers that blob up the hardest, maintain a T3 SMC, focus most of their attention on EBG, and run when things go wrong.

A better metric would be lets call it Modified KDR(MKDR). Works in the same way, but you do not get any countable kills when you have a tower/keep/castle buff. You do not get any countable kills when you outnumber the enemy. You get bonus points when you're killing people while outnumbered.

The problem is, it's more fun to gvg, to open field, and to skrim when in even numbers.

The metric doesn't have to be KDR (I used that as an understandable metric) there may be better ways to do this. But I think the idea of a handicap system where your server has some ability to control there own success (within the current rules of server locking & map queues) can work. We should be able to incentivize fighting in a Player vs Player game. Winning now just move you out of your "weight class" and no one is having fun.

@"dbill.7483" said:The metric doesn't have to be KDR (I used that as an understandable metric) there may be better ways to do this. But I think the idea of a handicap system where your server has some ability to control there own success (within the current rules of server locking & map queues) can work. We should be able to incentivize fighting in a Player vs Player game. Winning now just move you out of your "weight class" and no one is having fun.

just kills may be a better metric. some love to yolo.

@Sovereign.1093 said:

@"dbill.7483" said:The metric doesn't have to be KDR (I used that as an understandable metric) there may be better ways to do this. But I think the idea of a handicap system where your server has some ability to control there own success (within the current rules of server locking & map queues) can work. We should be able to incentivize fighting in a Player vs Player game. Winning now just move you out of your "weight class" and no one is having fun.

This is actually a really good idea lol.

This reminds me abit of the Elder Scrolls way of wvw. Imo it did seem to work pretty good using a type of faction setting each MU, as guilds & players werent locked down on servers, they signed up for a certain selected mission slot for the following week (individual players also sign up). This also gave guilds the opportunity to meet & fight other guilds they want to battle with & against, plus it kept the MUs numbers more healthy since inactive/retired players/guilds wouldnt sign up for next weeks MU.