Pawlegance.7012

Since GW2's release almost 8 years have passed. In this post I will be trying to explain how GW2's build system could be improved, at least from my point of view. I'll try to keep my points concise. Traits Feel Truly PassiveGW2 offers a lot of customization options to the player. However this customization in the form of traits mostly provide passive bonuses to skills. There appears to be little build crafting. Some tratis are just outright better than others with no trade-off. I propose a design change of traits in the direction of talents found in other games. Instead of merely improving base stats and adding boons/conditions, the idea is to change or adapt the behaviour of skills to your playstyle. Imagine a trait changing the nature of a skill which comes off cooldown quite often to one which hits harder but also got a longer cooldown. Or a healing skill affected by one trait line could behave differently than if it were affected by another. There is so much potential! Let me get excited in the build crafting process! The Mystery Of OverkillMissing some sort of energy mangament feels flat coming from GW1, RPGs and MOBAs. There are multiple reasons skills in those games cost energy and go on cooldown. They add to decision-making and counter play. Do you burn that high-powered-high-cost skill to secure a kill, knowing it will put you ad a disadvantage in the next fight? Or do you play it safe? Are you a patient hunter, or go in swords blazing? Everything comes with a cost. How much overkill is too much? This is a mystery worth solving! Observing your player would reveals if they are burning through energy and cooldowns. Add a subtle effect to players if they spend energy. Therefore I propose introducing an energy system to all professions. E.g. Add the Thief's initiate resource to them. There are two ways to introduce it. Either keep all skill costs as they are now and add a cost to skills changed by traits, or add a cost to all of them. Personally, I promote the first option, because it doesn't alienate the player base that much while introducing them to Build Wars realized by traits and new energy mechanic. In any case, players are tasked with building an engine. New traits could then be added to provide players with various ways of fueling their engine. Dodge for EnergyOne of those ways could be dodging. Add energy gain to the dodge skill. This allows dodge to be used proactively or reactively depening on the situation. Meaningful Boons and ConditionsIn GW1 boons and conditions refreshed their duration when stacked. They were always at their maximum potential (if skilled correctly). In GW2 players need to spam many stacks for conditions to reach their max potential. This causes a constant battle between power and condition builds in GW2. I propose to unify these two worlds by just using the model from GW1. Same goes for boons. At the same time this change could level the playing field for various support classes and fix some of the skill lag people experience in WvW and the newer maps. Lame Elite SkillsI make this quick: a lot of elite skills don't really feel like a build defining, battle winning skill. They feel more like a free-out-of-jail-card or coalescence of boons and conditions to me. I am spoiled by mobas and GW1, tho. ConclusionSince the meta rarely changes, I consider GW2 to be solved. There is not that much to talk about. Additionally, in 8 years, a lot can happen. Especially the gaming industry moves very fast. Maybe it is time to revamp some of the older systems in this game. What do you think?

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:How many players do you think would vote to have less PvE? The majority of the playerbase? If so, why aren't the other modes more popular? Why haven't they been the most popular ever since launch?If you think those that pay are more interested in modes other than PvE, again, why would it be only those that pay that have their desires heard? I'm all for all modes to get attention, but I'm guessing there are only so many resources, and those that know best decide where those resources should be concentrated. Again, I am not proposing to single out other game modes. But I am saying there has been some missmanagement in the past. Metrics can be deceiving. I think there are more reasons why modes other than open world pve are neglected. I'd say WvW, even though it has been neglected for a long while got the community with the strongest bonds between them while open world pve is what you can play while watching some streaming service/tv. It is a lot of fun, but nothing to build a community around it. Raids don't get new content because it is too dificult to get new blood. Instead of adding an "easy" mode, we got strike missions. Instead of fixing problems with dungeons, we got fractals. I rather support and fix content we already got. I am totally fine with ANET focussing on PVE, please don't misunderstand. In fact I know that PVE is making the most money for most MMORPGS. However that doesn't mean there is place for other modes. Especially MMORPGS need to cater to various audiences. Different modes add different myths. A game with all myths solved is a game no longer played.

"Why should only those buying Gems have their desires heard?The whole community is deserving, which is why the Devs read the forums, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and a myriad of other avenues of feedback.There are probably enough posts where players feel the Devs should listen to them as "paying customers", already." I didn't say that. The idea is to support old content, old formats as a counter weight to ever adding new formats like Strike Missions. It is about supporting underdeveloped and underfunded content. "Then how would you be assured that your money goes toward the option that you selected?"I won't. But currently I don't spend a dime on this game except for expansions because I feel the game is moving into the wrong direction. E.g. focus on single player content and ever more formats. With the suggested option I directly support a format or feature. "Perhaps those very metrics help Anet to know what modes provide the most income? It might be a hard sell to their investors to divert resources to modes that would bring in less. EDIT: so what if they did implement this as you suggest and what ends up happening is that more players opt for features that are not the features that you prefer? Those modes are already in a minority. Do you really think that this proposal would suddenly make those modes more popular?"I hope making games is about making players happy first and foremost not some investor.Regarding the edit: That is basic democracy at work. The majority is always right. This is not about making modes more popular by spending on them, but about supporting modes which are underdeveloped. "That's similar to asking them to add features to the game in the form of DLC, only instead of paying for that DLC directly, you pay for gem store items and say what you "paid for". You are a quarter too late I think, the game used to be neglecting almost everything and lack diverse content but the latest road map was more inclusive. I think everything on that road map released, so we can expect the next one soon-ish to see if it's gonna stay inclusive again. If you don't like the direction of the game in a specific quarter, or the next roadmap, simply stop paying until its over, they will see the drops and act upon them."I want to be pro-active and support the studio which released 2 games which defined much of my childhood and adult life. These games got me through some tough times when I lost family members and suffered difficult times. "Arenanet needs to pay all of their employees, not only those working on the most popular parts on the game.Your idea would basically ask employees of the less popular modes to give up (part of) their wages. The less popular modes already receive too little support.They don't need even less support."Nope. At least I hope their contracts don't work like that. I want to improve support for less popular modes. Think of it like a Kickstarter campaign. Here is what we want to do, but we need your support to get over the line. I bought the expansions only to get access to the elite specs. I love pvp and wvw, but these game modes are underdeveloped compared to pve, especially solo content as in the LS. I see your criticism, but if we could've voted to have less LS, less throw-away content, more raids and fractals, more endgame in general, I think at lot of damage could've been prevented. Looking at you, lay-offs and failed projects.

Please, let me declare support of a feature when I buy gems with real money. The concept is to add a multiple choice or drop down menu to the ui in which I can pledge my support towards a specific feature.I see options like Personal Story, Open World, Raid, Dungeon, Fractals, PvP, WvW, Strikes and Other (Please specify). I don't expect ANet to disclose where to money "goes", because it would cause discontent among the community. However it could steer ANet into developing a feature further, start working on one, or revamp one if they see it is worth their time and effort. The reason why I write this is because I feel certain features get neglected as a result of their metrics and then continue promoting features over others even though there might be a slumbering community who very much support them. E.g. Dungeons, WvW, PvP or DX12 support might be good candidates for this.

The announcement of the new expansion lit a fire in me. It rekindled my passion for this game and I get a lot of ideas for this game. This thread is about some of them which I've been toying with. Captures Nodes and GraphsGW2 is heavily based on capture nodes. They are used in all formats, pve, spvp and wvw. However there is no interplay between them. They just sit there acting as a task, an objective. I propose to integrate them into graphs on some maps or sections of a map. Players (and monsters) are guided by the graph's edges which results in moving and shifting frontlines. Some nodes must be captured to advance, some act as side-objectives aside the frontline. Capture nodes could then be classified and fortified according to their importance to the push. One or more capture nodes act as winning condtion(s). This adds tension and climax to a campaign. Underwater CombatUnderwater combat feels disconnected from the main game. Players rarely spend their time underwater and if they do, their skill bar, skill rotation etc change dramatically when entering it. This alienates players and renders some content void. Since line of sight and breaking los play an integral part in the game and movement feels so different from the rest of the game, there are a couple of changes and additions which could "save" this content.-Add water currents. When players move inside a current they move like on land. Water currents intersect each other which makes it possible to traverse most of a water body like a land map but limited by the web of currents. Players can leave a current with a press of a button and automatically enter one when they swim inside.-Add obstacles to water currents. Like on land, these obstacles can be used to move around and change positions during combat.-Enable regular weapons for underwater. Add underwater weapons to the regular arsenal.-Change all area of effect shapes to 3 dimensional shapes. No circles, but spheres, cubes etc. Messy CombatGW2 doesn't know what it wants to be. RPG or shooter. Is it fast or slow paced? I'd argue vanilla was slow paced, with every expac it got faster. With the introduction of mounts and availability of increased movement and increased attack speed buffs, the world got smaller and combat ever faster. Invulnerability got even more import at the same time damage output increased dramatically. The way to go is to stun and kill the target, leaving little room for counter play. You are not allowed to give your opponent some space, because they are quick to recover. This is similar to modern shooters which quick self-healing capabilties for players out of combat. Decision making is reduced to do-or-die. On the other hand, there are bunker builds which draw out fights, fighting bunkers feels boring and unrewarding, bunkers feel out of place. There is no middle ground, only extremes. I'd argue, that combat in GW2 actually wants to be more tactical. In order to make it feel more tactical, I propose to slow down recovery times and turn invulnerability into damage mitigation. Dodge feels like a low skill-high reward escape. Of course you need to time it right to escape danger, but it negates all danger. Instead I would like to promote the repositioning aspect of dodge. In Unreal Tournament dodge is used both offensively and defensively, in LoL same story. In both games quick movement is used to make plays and counter plays. In GW2 it is just used defensively. If dodge should be used to reposition yourself, skill ceiling increases and it plays more tactically. Additionally, invulnerability and movement speed led to numerous aoe skills. If aoe skills were reduced in size and number GW2 becomes more readable and clarity improves. In GW2, players are quick to recover from damage. This makes it easier to recover from mistakes and improves flow, but reduces downtime from fights and reduces viable plays. This is the reason why GW2 only promotes one position in combat and one way: in your opponent's face. There is no poking, no softening up. Become a death ball and roll over the opposition. There is no war of attrition. In GW1, fights depend on the energy of monks in your team, in mobas and rpgs, fights depend on your health bar, in GW2, fights depend on time. You must be quick to kill. I'd love if we could follow the way mobas and rpgs do it. Make health your biggest resource, and costly for you alone to get it back. This change could also improve the trinity of damage, support and control. I hope some of these ideas make sense to you.

The idea is to first set a specific team size for all pvp game modes. I chose 5vs5 because it seemed to be the standard in most popular pvp games. It could be anything, but it needs to be the same for the purpose of balancing the game. Second, I consider GvG was at its prime during prophecies, still decent when Factions came out, but already started to degrade. Toss in Nightfall skills and professions and it becomes unmanageable. I reckon that most people probably moved on from a 15 year old game, but the idea is to get in fresh blood. From my view, I don't think we will ever see something like the PvP formats from GW1 in GW2, so I make these suggestions to build a GW ecosphere. After all these games are nothing alike, distinct in their own rights, but still share parts of the same engine. ANet are blessed with a 100% success rate for their games and a huge fanbase which want them to succeed and support them, even tho some of the last years were bleak. If anything comes from this, be it something like visions of the past (pvp edition) in which players may jump back into these old game modes with similar gameplay, freshened and touched up for GW2 or updates to GW1 (very unlikely), it would make a really happy fan. ANet got such jewels in their hands and fortunately they recognized that as you can see with the latest LW updates. I just hope they don't forget about PvP.

This notion is born from me logging into GW1 yesterday. I got hit by nostalgia really hard and felt strange for a while. I saw the silver trim on my guild's cape, noticed that I and most of my guild members last went online 7 years ago. I tried to get into FA, but ofc no one was there. Then I logged off. The rest of the evening was spent trying to find the guild members of various guilds I spent my childhood with. It seemed to be a lost cause. Then I got hit by nostalgia again. It didn't help that I watched the coverage of GWFC on YT shortly before. Of course this post doesn't belong into GW2 discussion, but I don't know where to put it. This post is also heavily influence by a recent video by WoodenPotatoes in which he talkes over how things could have been handled better in GW1. Please regard this post as a wishlist for GW1. I would love to return to this game, but I find it hard to get games. Here is a compiled list of features which could revive pvp in GW1 in my view. -Set the team size for all pvp formats to 5vs5.-Add support for solo, duo and full party queues.-Adjust matchmaking to allow for new team size and queued teams.-Add individual player rating-Further split skill sets, but instead of splitting PvE and PvP, use the campaigns. Have a skill set for Prophecies, one for Factions, one for Nightfall, one for Prophecies+Eye of the North, one for all campaigns (already have that).-Tie skill set of ranked play to game mode like below:GvG, HA, RA, Codex->PropheciesFA, JQ, AB->Factions-For unranked play, use PvP skill set.-Allow players to create unranked matches and tournaments for all pvp formats with any skill set.-Scale GvG maps maps by ~25-33% to reduce walking distances.-Reduce number of NPCs on all PvP maps.-Add a PvP window and queue system so you and your team can join any game mode from anywhere.-Reinstate leaderboards. I needed to get this off my chest. Thank you a lot for reading even tho this thread is out of place. It might be a case of beating a dead horse, but GW1 never died to me. It still got a special place in my gamer heart.

Thank you for your answers. Will definately check out this video. I've watched Mighty Teapots (?) casting of a recent monthly tournament and wasn't impressed. In fact, it was hard to follow and didn't advertise the game. Most games snowballed hard once a team got the upper hand. The pace of this game doesn't help either. "in my opinion is totally a l2p issue. And I'm not attacking you, it's just a general thing. If I start to play dota now, I never played it, I totally don't know which champions is good for a certain lane and which build I have to build on it. In the same way, when you start to play gw2 you don't know which class should play a certain role with a certain build."No offense taken. The difference is I rather watch dota and learn (monkey see, monkey do) by watching. Well, I wouldn't even start comparing the depth and gameplay of spvp with dota , that's not even a competition.

1) yeah, I forgot about that. Thanks for reminding. however, would you be able, as a caster, to explain what is going on to the average joe watching it on twitch? it is just so flashy. 2) for some reason, I got placed into gold after completing placement matches, I didn't even do that well. I'd put myself into bronze since I've not beenplaying for so long. it is unclear why I was placed way above my league. I will probably not participate in ATs due to time constraints.however the number of snowballing matches in this game is insane. Matchmaking appears to be non-existant. 3) to be honest, spvp feels way more chaotic any other pvp game I played. please clarify the difference between a rotational dps, dps and duelist. I haven't seen dps stick to a specific node. in any case, according to your posts conquest seems to be deeper than it presents itself and makes it even harder for new players to climb. Since you claim, there is a difference between at, mat play and regular soloq games, ANET should focus on clearing misconceptions and make it easier to learn the game.compare it to lol or dota or most mobas, the way the game is played doesn't change between high level play and low level play. You've got 5 fixed roles and you learn them. In gw1 roles were even more pronounced with Mesmers and Rangers focusing on disruption and split. there appears to be a gap between new players coming to pvp and veterans. I don't think just saying l2p builds the bridge. 4) well, it doesn't really defeat my point. my point was about actual shifts in power if you do better or worse than the other team. statistics can be deceiving. it is not like a team actually scores after the win a fight. e.g. in football you score if you outplay your opponent (most of the times), same in rocket league, in gw1 you gain a morale boost, kill npcs or the lord, destroy structures in lol/dota etc, in spvp it just ticks away. there is no actual gain and loss. there are reasons why the pvp mode never took off and gains so little traction.

I've been playing sPvP on and off, but mostly off. I stopped when Skyhammer turned into a troll heaven and just recently returned to give pvp another go. This comes from a Dolyak who has been stomped a lot by Dragons lately, but I hope you appreciate some of the following thoughts on sPvP. I try to outline my points as concise as possible. Fighting for AttentionI love that this game puts the focus on actually watching the opposition instead of the UI. At least in general it does. However I feel the UI always tries to get my attention because critical boons are not really visible on the player character. You see them if they are selected, but icons are tiny compared to the action around you and I don't want to increase their size or make them blink. Instead, use icons as evidence of applied effects and focus on telling special effects on characters. A lot of sfx go off which don't concern me and might even obscure information needed in battle. Imagine the opposition charging you with Eternity and all the flashy slashes obscuring your vision. It happened to me and it affects my counter play. In order to facilitate counter play, I suggest sorting sfx by importance. Imagine a warrior charging you with a great sword and the first thing you see is if they got fury or stability. Layers of AbstractionThis leads me to my next point. A lot of effects overlap each other, some of them affect me little, some a lot. Some AoEs deal a lot of damage to me or impair me heavily. I'd like for AoEs to have their effects highlight as much as in PvE depending on how dangerous they are. If you are like me and don't know much about the other elite specs, you sometime experience a WTF moment. How did they kill me? Why can't I seem to hurt the other guy? There is a steep learning curve and some abstraction might help players step through the process. At the top, highlight effects on players which greatly increase their threat against you, and highlight effects on you which help you dispose of your opposition the most. Highlight AoEs depending on the damage they inflict on you. Install a medium tier which shows effects on them which increase their survivability. Visualize boons players got and be able to tell how well protected they are just be looking at them. At the bottom, this is what we see now. This is for players who know specs and the game inside out. Enable players to choose the layer of abstraction or let them adjust it to their needs. Learning CurveThis game hides a lot of information and makes it difficult to learn from mistakes or other players. I'd love to inspect the builds others use after a match has ended. I know there is a window which shows how they killed you, but I rarely analyse it due to quick respawn. Give me the tools to analyse my performance afterwards. Observer ModeIn GW1 you could watch high level matches and rewatch your latest. This really helps in analysing mistakes and learn how top players behave in different situations. Monkey see, monkey does. I know there is an observer mode in GW2 but afaik you may only watch current matches. It feels like there is no top player/team scene. I don't know them. I still remember The Last Pride and War Machine, Idiot Savants and Treacherous Empire among other from GW1. I watched them play in awe. I don't recognize top players or top teams in GW2. Rewarding DefeatsLosing a ranked match increases your personal rank. It even increases your rank more than winning an unranked match. Now I agree that participating in pvp and leading players from low stake to high stake matches is the way to go, but I propose to scale rank gain with current rank. In the current system, all you need is to participate in a number of matches and you will get to the highest rank eventually. At one point only winning should rank you up. Until then, I don't think that's a fair assessment of you skill and the skill of everybody else in this rank group. It devalues your achievement, theirs and kinda turns rank gain into a grind instead of an ascensions. Reward players for participating in order to get them into pvp, but make sure only the best players actually rise to the top. Your rank should reflect how good you are! MatchmakingI've encountered numerous dragons and other much better ranked players. And I've also seen most of the matches play out similarly. One team is just better and defeats to other 500-150. I guess one cause is lack of player base and another a way to really gauge a player's abilities. Since everyone may get to the highest rank at one point, it cannot be used to properly evaluate a player. I think the current rating provides some way to evaluate a player, but it depends on performance during a season and current balance (or flavour of the month). To be honest, rank or rating do not concern me. All I want is good games, mostly fair and with a chance to win. PvP in its current state, does not really provide it. Build upRight now, the pvp feels arcade-y. Let me explain. Personally, I like the quick matches. At the same time I miss downtime in matches and between matches. Usually I just play match after match without really reflecting on the last one. This is caused by the perceived need to quickly climb in personal rank and rewards shelled out in a match even when you lost. ProgressYou cannot talk about Conquest without talking about Stronghold. It is one-dimensional, feels familiar, quick, easy to practice your profession in a somewhat safe environment. Had some decent matches but turned to Conquest after we got defeated by certain compositions which just pushed the line into the lord room and killed them without much resistance. There is no real counter play to a better composition. Given its limitations it still got something Conquest lacks. There is build up. You move the front-line up until you can kill an npc. This progress cannot be reversed and it feels good to get there. In Conquest there is no such build up. You get the points, but personally they feel more like PPT from WvW. There is no satisfaction in scoring the 500th point. In Stronghold, you mostly win by stomping or killing the lord. This provides satisfaction! In essence, Conquest plays like team death match with 3 places most fights occur in. There is no strategy, no tactics, just team composition. If you die, respawn and run back to one of those places as quickly as possible. It is really difficult to come back unless the opposition gets complacent or makes serious mistakes. There is no progress in matches, no early, mid or late game. It is all action, but no depth. Secondary mechanics add little to this game mode because they tie so heavily into point scoring. Think of flag running in GW1's GVG mode for a secondary mechanic. It does not serve the main purpose directly but can improve your advantage a bit or get you back on your feet. In LoL, dragons and baron nashor provide boosts to add to your advantage or come back from a disadvantage, but are also known to be throw pits. Even if your team gains these boons the match may still be very open. In GW2 they just add to the snowballing effect. RolesThe second reason is a consequence of missing progress and actual objectives within a match and how Conquest is designed. The most important thing is to defeat your opposition in direct combat. Hence there is only one role: the damage carry. Each profession approaches the how differently but if you fail at killing you won't enjoy Conquest. You cannot compensate your deficiencies by doing something else during the game e.g. support or complete a minor objective. AttritionI miss a war of attrition in this game. You should be punished for making mistakes and rewarded for playing well. Killing opposition should help you deal with attrition and shift the power balance slightly in your favor. Implementing a war of attrition could also go a long way of adding depth to this mode and game overall. Possible Solutions to ConquestHere are some suggestions to improve Conquest according to the points raised above. Some of these points work best in combination with each other. All are meant to keep work on maps and mode at a minimum. Score Variants-Best x out of Y. A team needs to control the majority of objectives on the map. Instead of constantly ticking, a countdown appears for Z seconds it any team got control majority. When the countdown expires the controlling team gets a point and everyone spawns back at base. A new round begins. Secondary Mechanics Variants-Capture the Flag like in GW1's GvG mode. Choose a point in equidistance between the spawn points. X seconds after capture, a team gains a morale boost. Attrition-Morale like in GW1: Each time you die you get a disadvantage. Each time your team kills or gains a morale boost you gain an advantage. A team loses if all members got X disadvantage. There are more ideas floating around in my head, but this post grew a bit too long already. I hope you can find something useful in this post. Looking forward to you replies.

I think GW2 shines the most in groups of 5-10 players. That's why I think objectives and encounters should be designed in a way that it makes little sense to allocate more than 10 players for each objective. I'd say if we could split up champs in Open World into champ groups spread around a bit, and change WvW so there are more smaller objectives on the map we could reduce visual noise, reduce importance of zergs and flatten the learning curve between low-end and high-end pvx. Note: I am not opposed to champ farming or huge open world bosses, but think both could be expanded and improved upon given this game's popularity. What do you think?

Here is what I'd love to see in the expac:-Choice between Kurzick and Luxon-Return of AB, JQ and FA-Open World PvPvE (like in WoW)-Neutral Cities-Scrambled communication between the two factions-Sailing ship/fleet as guild hall-Ship combat like in Assassin's Creed (and others) but with guild mates on deck-Fleet vs Fleet game mode (alliance battles on the sea)-Various ship types, a guild builds its ship(s)-GvG ship battle (guilds use their own ships vs one another) Love to hear what you think :)

Let my try to put everything you said together and clarify a couple of my thoughts along the way. I'll reiterate on your points not to steal them, but to give them more weight. AccessibilityUnlike PvE, access to WvW is heavly limited by numerous pay-walls. Generally you basically have to pay for 1 expansion to get everything. In WvW you also have to pay for each server hop without getting much more content. One might even argue that this content is 7 years old and maybe not worth it.Suggested solution: Each player receives a transfer token for free. This allows you to hop onto another server once every week. Effectively once you used this token, it goes on cooldown for 1 week. Remove server transfer fees completely. Advertise the ModeIt is difficult to get new flesh into WvW. This gets even more difficult, because new people got no mount, no elite specs etc. They might feel overwhelmed.Suggested solution: Characters who enter WvW for the first time can borrow mounts similar to pve. They will lose their mount when dismounted and need to run back to an npc to get them, but this closes the gap between vets and newcomers nontheless. In addition, every account gets access to a wvw template char slot. In this slot, players may choose from a set of various pre-designed level 80 characters. Think of the preset pvp characters in GW1. Alternatively they may create a character of any profession and swap around elite specs during its lifetime. In both cases, these chars may only enter wvw. Population BalanceThere are two non-mutually exclusive ways to fix this - at least from my prespective.Cap Population by reducing active maps (general ideas):As previously mentioned: Reduce the number of active maps from 4 to 1. Effectively this reduces the number of players needed per server to be competitive in wvw. Select 1 map each day, while still fighting the same opposition for one week.Now, either select a fixed rotation for all maps for players to fight on. Or implement a system similar to Alliance Battles in GW1.Each week, EB is selected initially, then after one day, the ranking is determined and the map switches to the loser's home map.After this day, rankings are calculated again and they may switch to the home map of another loser or if score is close, go back to EB. The above solution is aimed at aligning environment to the (declining) number of active players. It also should balance server population because each server may only deploy that many players to WvW. Whenever wvw population recovers, ANet may choose to unlock all 4 maps for matchups again. Now to the second solution, which is aimed at balancing server population and improving the score system.I call it pupulation budget. Population BudgetIn essence each day (if using the above pop cap) or each week (if number of active maps stay the same) for each server a population budget is calulcated. Now this is used to evaluate the result of each battle according to the following rules:A player kill adds 1 to the died player's server, and 1 to the killing server. This number is then balanced against the odds of winning that particular fight which heavly depends on each server's numbers participating in that fight. We basicially reward a small group for killing opponents from big groups more than the other way around. This method of calculation is only active above a certain group size (e.g 5 or 10). Basically every good group contributes to population budget and every bad group reduces population budget. Population budget and objective score are then weighted and added. Thus each server's population budget has a direct effect on placement making it possible for a server of good fighters climb above servers which just have numbers (so to speak). This change in score is supposed to reward good players, coordinated servers and balance worlds of different population sizes against each other because higher pop servers are estimated to win, and lower pop to lose battles. In any way it is supposed to prefer smaller groups over big zergs in battles. ANet could also reward players for doing well, but this a story for another post. What do you think?

Thank you for your elaborate comments. I've been out of touch with the community for a while and apparently it shows. So the picture is ok, but the frame isn't. Let me try to find suggestions better suited for the actual problems as outlined in your posts. We got a general population problem in WvW which are caused by underdevelopment of the mode compared to PvE and probably even PvP, low level of rewards (coming from PvE), pull, and accessibility (among others). Furthermore we got the issue of highly imbalanced matchups which is exacerbated by long durations of matches. I think low rewards are actually connected to the length of matches. From a design perspective you'd probably create some reward budget per activity. Each activity is weighted against difficulty, duration, etc, so if there is an activity which runs for a whole week compared to ~1:30 hours it is probably seen as easier content, thus lowering its rewards per day. This leads me to the proposition of dividing the week into 7 matches. A match takes one day and is either played on a BL or the EB. Basically I suggest rotating through the borderlands twice and finally playing the final match on EB. This results in the following outcome or possible consequences:It caps the overal population by a lot and balances population since (I think) only 500 players may join any WvW map. For a single server it is much easier to field ~167 players on one map, than that amount times 4 for any given time.It makes it possible for ANET to design rewards per day. What they could do is add a time gate to rewards. Players may earn some reward once per day after, let's say, ~1.30 hours of regular play. While this draws in fresh blood, if the rewards are good, it also prevents players from burning out. This also promotes some sort of hand-over between players, hence more people may join WvW.It somewhat closes the gap between night crew and day crew and results in a build up play. I expect population to reach its peak in prime time, so daily matches could be enhanced with some sort of big PvP event so all matches end with a bang. Or just leave them as they are :)It changes how WvW is played. People will probably look at the current day differently whether they have to defend their home BL for that day or attack the BL of their opposition. Sometimes you have to defend, sometimes you have to attack.Matches reach their climax on the last day when everyone meets in EB.Maps are locked. This might be undesirable for some, but I think it is a good idea to add shortages to a game of abundances.Each day may be evaluated and weighted on its own given they are played mostly exclusively on someones BL. Some servers are expected to win, some to lose and it is somewhat easier to look at a day individually than a whole week of play.WvW might become less accessible due to the lowered capacity. It might also be possible for ANET to increase capacity per map since they only have to worry about a single one at a time. They might also choose to enlarge maps a bit (as seen in PvE) to allow for more players.In the future, ANET could add maps which have different flows, themes, objective play, siege play etc and end in their own climax. Got carried away a bit, sorry for that. Might have even missed something in the heat. Overall these suggestions feel better than the ones proposed in the op because they align better with the root issues. It might hurt to reduce availability of WvW, but I'll take (over-)crowded maps any day over minutes of outnumbered "buff". It is just theorycrafting but most of this already makes me feel better :)

Yesterday I joined WvW again after a 3.5 year break and although it was late in the evening and I was short on time, I felt right at home. People reviving me in defeated state, defending garrison and tower, retaking both, taking one enemy's garrison and then again losing our own again. All of which happened in 1 hour, maybe 1.30 hours. It felt great, we were horribly outnumbered at a time, but we faced all odds and got back what's "rightfully" ours. Then it struck me. WvW with all the great fights and objectives, renown guilds etc still feels like a state machine, but without start or end. It feels like a sandbox but without the freedom and without the consequences of losing anything (perma-death, loss of equipment etc). It also feels like PvE in a way you cannot actually lose - unlike PvP, which definately hurts when you lose. I know, I know, it is bad if you lose an upgraded tower or garrison, but does it have any actual consequence on the match? From my experience, no - you just take it back. It might take a bit if the enemy havoc group or zerg remains present, but other than having to walk a bit longer to the battle there is no downside to losing. Actually you never really lose a match. It just ends, and then the team with the biggest number in an excel sheet wins. Now, it does feel great to win a battle, even losing a battle isn't bad, because you and your team will get together and win at some point, but a triumph only lasts this long. There is no penalty, as said, other than walking back to the fight. Objectives just make the stage of a battle and draw players in, but their state is of no consequence to any team, they just increase the holding server's score. With these things in mind, after we lost our garrison a last time that evening, I felt ambivalence toward it. Sure we lost a waypoint closer to Stonemist, but we will get it back soon enough. Then what, we were not enough people to take the fight to the server with the higher population at the time, and people were rather logging off anyway. What can I do, how can I help my server before going to bed myself. There must be something I can build or destroy to help them. Moving on, I am proposing a change in design philosophy for WvW. WvW (similar to PvE) feels like it is on auto pilot, towers and keeps upgrade automatically, dolyaks bring in supply automatically etc. Objectives feel generic and don't impact the game as objectives should. Instead of taking away responsibilites from the players, give them all and more. Base building, troop management, resource management etc, all should be in players' hands . Make it actually feel like we are playing a huge RTS. Make walls more durable, but also increase time and resources to build them. Let players be architects of their base! Make them feel something for these structures, these safe havens for your people. No longer the objective game should revolve around flipping them, but actually raising them up from dust or turning them into dust! Let it burn! Make people stop and watch it burn! There should be time to recover from defeats, learn from them and give a damn about things! It should feel great if you've just destroyed something big! Make the stage of WvW feel alive! @Stephane Lo Presti.7258 Once we got that right, let's talk about scaling rewards for scaling investment.