Alternative to Alliances - Static Server Pairing

[XenesisII.1540]

20 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Was some awesome pulls last night lol. Told peeps to be ready for some avalanches if you grabbed the tag. 

Whelp didn't grab any tags last night, but had a couple fun pulls flinging some myst zerglers out of garri and hills cliffs. 🤭

 

 

 

[Mistwraithe.3106]

I think the best solution would be to keep the current worlds but relink every week. That would make it very expensive for people to keep swapping to stack servers which is one of the biggest problems currently. It also means if you get a bad link (for whatever definition that means, some people regard it as a bad link when there isn't enough competition, for others it is when there is too much competition) then it's only for a week.

The main flow on effect from that is the current tiers don't work, you can't really have a reward of your team going up a tier if the teams change due to relinks every week. But most people don't seem to be all that motivated by winning to go up tiers anyway, it seems to be more about trying to end up against your preferred competition next week.

So I would drop the tier system and instead have small weekly rewards which are higher for the winning team (I would still give some rewards to the middle and losing team, but less as you go down) and potentially scale slightly based on play time / contribution (not too huge, mainly so that someone who only logged into WvW for 20 minutes during the week gets significantly less than players who played WvW for > 5 hours).

That's what I would do. Thoughts?

[joneirikb.7506]

To be honest, the easiest solution would probably be to:

* Remove the BorderLands.
* Only run 1 EBG per matchup.
* Enable Pips, Mount, Gliding in EotM.
* Fix so you can do all dailies/etc in both.

Let the ones that care about matchups and teams and the continuity of the game mode etc play in EBG. Let all the reward driven players go in EotM.

[Hesione.9412]

10 hours ago, ChrisWhitey.9076 said:

I think we need to start over when it comes to WvW. I say leave the current WvW as is and make a ranked version that groups you in a server based on personal skill level. Do better get moved up need to do better stay where you are. Ranked is great for a healthy commentative game mode that is better designed to help improve players that want to get better and the current WvW has its own problems with that. Not saying this is a solution to the many WvW issues we have but it would be nice to have competitive WvW rewards and rankings back if done the right way. 

Edit - Just to be clear the Ranked idea would need to have its own new server grouping system and needs to leave unranked completely unrelated.

This is a group game mode. We have a game mode already that has individual players get ranked, it's called PvP.

[Hesione.9412]

58 minutes ago, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

I think the best solution would be to keep the current worlds but relink every week. That would make it very expensive for people to keep swapping to stack servers which is one of the biggest problems currently. It also means if you get a bad link (for whatever definition that means, some people regard it as a bad link when there isn't enough competition, for others it is when there is too much competition) then it's only for a week.

The main flow on effect from that is the current tiers don't work, you can't really have a reward of your team going up a tier if the teams change due to relinks every week. But most people don't seem to be all that motivated by winning to go up tiers anyway, it seems to be more about trying to end up against your preferred competition next week.

So I would drop the tier system and instead have small weekly rewards which are higher for the winning team (I would still give some rewards to the middle and losing team, but less as you go down) and potentially scale slightly based on play time / contribution (not too huge, mainly so that someone who only logged into WvW for 20 minutes during the week gets significantly less than players who played WvW for > 5 hours).

That's what I would do. Thoughts?

The winning servers seem to have 24/7 coverage. Many servers do not, even with pairings. And when your server-pair has little NA coverage, with most being in OCX, you're going to lose the week because most skirmishes aren't covered.

[TheGrimm.5624]

14 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Whelp didn't grab any tags last night, but had a couple fun pulls flinging some myst zerglers out of garri and hills cliffs. 🤭

 

 

 

lol, I was cursing not being on the War when that pile came down. My Guards are slower than my Wars. Thought you had grabbed the tag and was saying fish on to the havoc in voice., later my slow kitten brain reminded me we were testing some mixes and I had no War sword lol. oops! hehheheh Xen!!! no!!!!!!! Kitten me. 😞

[XenesisII.1540]

1 minute ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

lol, I was cursing not being on the War when that pile came down. My Guards are slower than my Wars. Thought you had grabbed the tag and was saying fish on to the havoc in voice., later my slow kitten brain reminded me we were testing some mixes and I had no War sword lol. oops! hehheheh Xen!!! no!!!!!!! Kitten me. 😞

lol I totally didn't expect them to jump out that's why I burned my port to catch that solo. I probably should have tried to juke back through them instead of going forward, that's what I would normally do with the port. Eh was a good laugh anyways. 🤭

[TheGrimm.5624]

4 minutes ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

lol I totally didn't expect them to jump out that's why I burned my port to catch that solo. I probably should have tried to juke back through them instead of going forward, that's what I would normally do with the port. Eh was a good laugh anyways. 🤭

lol, it still made me grumpy as I laughed to so to the War I went. 

[blp.3489]

13 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

To be honest, the easiest solution would probably be to:

* Remove the BorderLands.
* Only run 1 EBG per matchup.
* Enable Pips, Mount, Gliding in EotM.
* Fix so you can do all dailies/etc in both.

Let the ones that care about matchups and teams and the continuity of the game mode etc play in EBG. Let all the reward driven players go in EotM.

I think some of us would miss the borderlands.

TLDR version: create a separate system where you sacrifice the fixed team aspect of wvw and just put players into an instance, with guild members kept together, so there are always well-populated maps you can play on.

As guild-based WR is coming anyway, why not leave the current WvW as is and add a separate system with an instanced EBG where you get added to an instance with your team assignment based on your guild if you have one.  Maybe let players transfer between instances as per the pve system and just use the squad system to allow guilds or any other group to consolidate in the same instance.  The people who play because they enjoy playing but don't care about the scoring system can jump on there when they feel like it, almost always on a well-populated map.  You would usually have a decently populated map no matter the time of day, provided the system could smoothly handle adding and removing instances.  I'm not sure how the pve system avoids putting the single user that overflows the existing instances into a new instance with no other players, maybe it doesn't but I don't recall ever being put in a map with zero other players.

Perhaps you could have a system, similar to the existing queue system where you can add yourself to a queue and keep on playing until a spot opens up, and then have periodic "resets" where everyone in the queue gets put into a new instance so you would create an experience similar to the current post-reset play that seems to be very popular.

Potentially you could have the people who enjoy the current mode continuing on doing so, and the people who don't care about scoring and just want to play in the moment with their guild, or solo, on a reasonably populated map could do so regardless of time of day.  The instanced maps would definitely be more chaotic than the current setup as you would be thrown in with,  outside of your guild, essentially random teammates.

My guess is that the existing matchup maps would become even more deserted during off hours as many people would choose to play in a well populated instanced map instead of a deserted matchup map.  But if that is the player's preference then so be it, why insist on 24/7 match up maps if those maps are going to be unfun to play many hours of the day.  If the number of players in the matchup maps falls a lot then the number of matchups can be reduced and the players who are dedicated to that format consolidated in a smaller number of teams with other like-minded players.

Edited September 28, 2023 by blp.3489

[Mistwraithe.3106]

23 hours ago, Hesione.9412 said:

The winning servers seem to have 24/7 coverage. Many servers do not, even with pairings. And when your server-pair has little NA coverage, with most being in OCX, you're going to lose the week because most skirmishes aren't covered.

Sure, my suggestion isn't really trying to change what determines the winner of a matchup. Are there any alternate solutions which did address this tho?

My understanding is that the main problem people complain about is world stacking which happens after every relink. My suggestion was mainly to address that.

[Junkpile.7439]

Make green, blue and red server. First player inside after reset is in green team, second goes blue, third goes red and so on. When everything is random it's hard to stack.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Junkpile.7439

[Solvar.7953]

The problem with everything being random is that it is hard to play with friends/guild mates.

I mean they could do it like PvP, where what team you are on is determined when you enter the mode - then within WvW at any given time, there would be the same number of players on each team, but such a system would be immensely unpopular.  There is also the problem of a player entering WvW does not mean that the player is active or doing anything more than flipping camps or otherwise doing bare minimum for certain rewards.

 

[XenesisII.1540]

It's pretty late to be suggesting anything else at this point. Players have been wanting a more balanced population spread from day one, there's been numerous ideas for it, this particular idea has been known to us for at least 5 years, and there hasn't been a single unified rallying cry/protest from the players from anywhere to change it to something else, other than a handful of people that want "their" own system in place.

World Restructuring will go through, it's already far along enough for release(whenever anet decides to pull anyone off pve development), it can function without alliances, it's just a bigger pain on the players to work around it because of guild limitations which anet is not willing to change.

End of the day it all really doesn't matter, we don't even play to win, we play to avoid tiers, we can flip flop balance in whatever system, that main problem still needs to be solved or there's no point to even reshuffling populations in whatever ways than what we currently have.

[joneirikb.7506]

Re-reading the original post again, the whole topic really is about population-balance, so this will be "fixed" with World Restructure anyway. And a reminder that Alliances sub-system of World Restructuring doesn't really have anything to do with the population balance by itself.

And the whole "practise wvw" really needs to be something irrelevant of servers. Which is why I think EotM is the best place for that. (Or possibly a own map in each match-up that for some reason is easier or less appealing to veterans)

And absolutely any system involving the current servers has to start with: Remove Transfers, and probably implode them and let people pick servers anew. Or we'll never get rid of the 10+ years of server stacking and problems we've had.

----

@blp.3489

I agree, I'd miss the borderlands maps myself, I said it was the easiest solution, not the best! 😛

Assumptions:
* This idea assumes that World-Restructure isn't going to happen/doesn't exist.
* Trying to make healthy(er) tiers
* Handle large amounts of players/differences in team size, without ruining matchups
* Retain the Progression (24/7) format

Progression:
* Limit to a single EBG map, remove other maps from normal WvW.
* This focuses all Progression focus down to a single map (points, upgrades, match-up relevant things)
* This limits the match-up to only resolve around a single maps population cap instead of 4 (1x~70 instead of 4x~70)
* This further limits the impact of timezones, both by having less maps/points to impact, but also by forcing what players are active in these zones into the same map in order to concentrate the action/activity.
* This will allow several of our current servers/teams to be able to be large enough to cover EBG by themselves, and thus doesn't need links.
* Links system can/would still be used to link together smaller servers that can't compete by themselves.

Overflow:
* Enable Pips, Mount, Glider in EotM.
* This alone will make the mode much more popular.
* Players that doesn't care for the Progression can still get anything else in EotM (rewards, fights, roaming, capture objectives, ganking, zerging, dailies, etc).
* And as per existing, not being tied to the Progression makes it a more casual/relaxed experience for new players.

Optional:
* Add more maps to EotM (Example the Borderlands, since there isn't any Progression in them anyway, it doesn't even matter if they're unbalanced toward home position).

This would be what I consider the "easiest" solution for ANet to solve the population issues. Because by reducing the match-up to a single EBG you don't need nearly as many players, and they could use the existing linking system on top of that to adjust for very small servers. And since EotM (with rewards) handles the entire overflow, and as long as they get rewards and don't have to deal with as many try-hards, the majority probably would be ok with that.

The main benefit of this "Idea", is that it uses the existing systems ANet has in place, with very little to no changes, and adapts it to scale better to the mode/servers. They could basically slap this together in a basic state in a couple of days if they wanted to. Set map cap to 0 for all borderlands (easy numerical change they've done several times in the past), and enable pips in EotM, set a new number for linking algorithm, and you'd be 90% there.

That said, none of this will matter, because World-Restructure is a thing (eventually).

----

Quote

 

I think some of us would miss the borderlands.

TLDR version: create a separate system where you sacrifice the fixed team aspect of wvw and just put players into an instance, with guild members kept together, so there are always well-populated maps you can play on.

As guild-based WR is coming anyway, why not leave the current WvW as is and add a separate system with an instanced EBG where you get added to an instance with your team assignment based on your guild if you have one. Maybe let players transfer between instances as per the pve system and just use the squad system to allow guilds or any other group to consolidate in the same instance. The people who play because they enjoy playing but don't care about the scoring system can jump on there when they feel like it, almost always on a well-populated map. You would usually have a decently populated map no matter the time of day, provided the system could smoothly handle adding and removing instances. I'm not sure how the pve system avoids putting the single user that overflows the existing instances into a new instance with no other players, maybe it doesn't but I don't recall ever being put in a map with zero other players.

Perhaps you could have a system, similar to the existing queue system where you can add yourself to a queue and keep on playing until a spot opens up, and then have periodic "resets" where everyone in the queue gets put into a new instance so you would create an experience similar to the current post-reset play that seems to be very popular.

Potentially you could have the people who enjoy the current mode continuing on doing so, and the people who don't care about scoring and just want to play in the moment with their guild, or solo, on a reasonably populated map could do so regardless of time of day. The instanced maps would definitely be more chaotic than the current setup as you would be thrown in with, outside of your guild, essentially random teammates.

My guess is that the existing matchup maps would become even more deserted during off hours as many people would choose to play in a well populated instanced map instead of a deserted matchup map. But if that is the player's preference then so be it, why insist on 24/7 match up maps if those maps are going to be unfun to play many hours of the day. If the number of players in the matchup maps falls a lot then the number of matchups can be reduced and the players who are dedicated to that format consolidated in a smaller number of teams with other like-minded players.

 

Essentially: EotM

And your last section did happen, back when EotM had better rewards than standard WvW. It wasn't until they added PIPS to the game and made sure EotM didn't get that, that EotM basically "died overnight", and players followed the rewards (as they always do) to populate the main WvW maps instead. (Which I addressed in the idea above)

Quote

“A sad fact about you players, as a whole: you only do what you are rewarded for. You will do something less fun if you see a carrot at the end of the stick, and you will ignore something more fun if it doesn’t give you a 'ding' or an XP reward or a title.” – Raph Koster / Holocron (2002/11/26), SWG

Edited September 29, 2023 by joneirikb.7506
Funny forum text format in quotes happy time!

[joneirikb.7506]

On 9/27/2023 at 4:37 PM, ChrisWhitey.9076 said:

I think we need to start over when it comes to WvW. I say leave the current WvW as is and make a ranked version that groups you in a server based on personal skill level. Do better get moved up need to do better stay where you are. Ranked is great for a healthy commentative game mode that is better designed to help improve players that want to get better and the current WvW has its own problems with that. Not saying this is a solution to the many WvW issues we have but it would be nice to have competitive WvW rewards and rankings back if done the right way. 

Edit - Just to be clear the Ranked idea would need to have its own new server grouping system and needs to leave unranked completely unrelated.

This is an idea that has been brought up regularly over the years, and I agree that if you want an actual "competitive" way to play WvW, this is the only way/solution.

Xen makes good points as usual.

And while I think this is an interesting topic in its own right, and would love to see a new topic about it. It is not really relevant to what the Original Poster is saying, so I'll have to reply to it in terms of the topic. (Basically, what the OP is saying, will be done by World-Restructure anyway, so not that much to harp about).

But the closest we could have to a "ranked" system to use for normal WvW would be a more informal "drop in" system. Which, basically is EotM. Open World PvP (WvW) with Instanced maps, regular resets, no real stakes, drop in/out, somewhat team balance for hundreds of players.

From a technical and design perspective EotM is brilliant. But the majority of players really doesn't like it. 😛 (Guess ANet needs to give them more rewards, so they'll like it!)

----

If on the other hand you where to try to focus on the "competitive" aspect, then yeah I don't think anything short of something similar to your idea would cut it. The whole design of WvW (24/7, variable player numbers, variable player hours, variable player skill, variable player dedication, no Team restriction/recruitment/kick systems, etc) leaves that impossible. 

I think the closest you could get would be my "idea" above to limit the game to just EBG, to make it easier for servers to focus a single map for actual Progression/scoring. And thus letting everyone that doesn't care about the Progression/scoring to go to other maps.

[joneirikb.7506]

On 9/28/2023 at 1:55 AM, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

I think the best solution would be to keep the current worlds but relink every week. That would make it very expensive for people to keep swapping to stack servers which is one of the biggest problems currently. It also means if you get a bad link (for whatever definition that means, some people regard it as a bad link when there isn't enough competition, for others it is when there is too much competition) then it's only for a week.

The main flow on effect from that is the current tiers don't work, you can't really have a reward of your team going up a tier if the teams change due to relinks every week. But most people don't seem to be all that motivated by winning to go up tiers anyway, it seems to be more about trying to end up against your preferred competition next week.

So I would drop the tier system and instead have small weekly rewards which are higher for the winning team (I would still give some rewards to the middle and losing team, but less as you go down) and potentially scale slightly based on play time / contribution (not too huge, mainly so that someone who only logged into WvW for 20 minutes during the week gets significantly less than players who played WvW for > 5 hours).

That's what I would do. Thoughts?

As much as I'd appreciate and enjoy the Chaos, I think it would come with too many drawbacks.

* One week links would essentially turn normal WvW into EotM.
* It would remove any kind of team building/community building with links, making them even more strangers that will just drift through (like EotM)
* And as you said, will make Tiers meaningless as the populations will change each week.

I do appreciate how upset it would make server-stackers though! Especially when they realise that if they transfer every week, they'll never get rewards! \m/ ^_^ \m/

Overall your idea has merit if you're willing to abandon the "Progression" (24/7) system of WvW. And make it purely rewards/drop in-out driven. Which is essentially EotM.

Overall, I think you could accomplish the same, certainly easier, and probably better, by just enabling rewards (pips) in EotM. (And as I've said before in this thread, also Mount+Gliding).
 

[blp.3489]

What about having an EotM with rewards that are at least equivalent to regular WvW but which can only be accessed when all the player's team's maps are queued and where players are not assigned according to their regular team but rather to obtain balance.  And then reduce the number of teams so that off hours are better populated but the resulting increased number of players in queues have an equally profitable and still OW PvP alternative while they wait.

I know some people will try to abuse it but maybe that's okay if it doesn't mess up or detract from regular WvW.

[subversiontwo.7501]

8 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

This is an idea that has been brought up regularly over the years, and I agree that if you want an actual "competitive" way to play WvW, this is the only way/solution.

Xen makes good points as usual.

And while I think this is an interesting topic in its own right, and would love to see a new topic about it. It is not really relevant to what the Original Poster is saying, so I'll have to reply to it in terms of the topic. (Basically, what the OP is saying, will be done by World-Restructure anyway, so not that much to harp about).

But the closest we could have to a "ranked" system to use for normal WvW would be a more informal "drop in" system. Which, basically is EotM. Open World PvP (WvW) with Instanced maps, regular resets, no real stakes, drop in/out, somewhat team balance for hundreds of players.

From a technical and design perspective EotM is brilliant. But the majority of players really doesn't like it. 😛 (Guess ANet needs to give them more rewards, so they'll like it!)

----

If on the other hand you where to try to focus on the "competitive" aspect, then yeah I don't think anything short of something similar to your idea would cut it. The whole design of WvW (24/7, variable player numbers, variable player hours, variable player skill, variable player dedication, no Team restriction/recruitment/kick systems, etc) leaves that impossible. 

I think the closest you could get would be my "idea" above to limit the game to just EBG, to make it easier for servers to focus a single map for actual Progression/scoring. And thus letting everyone that doesn't care about the Progression/scoring to go to other maps.

I'm hopping into the thread out of the blue now and just quoting you for a hook in, so I may miss some things that have been said, but this felt like a good place to start.

It feels like people are overthinking things in this thread:

WvW already has a "ranked" system and a "competetive" system. It has always had them in the ladder and GvG (or player-made events). To some degree they are even organic as in groups meeting on maps and they can then decide to take it further if they want to be more "competetive" about it, in some player-made event. We, the players, sort those things out ourselves well enough.

To elaborate for whoever cares enough to read:

Spoiler

These things have always existed in WvW but the problems with them have always existed as well: The "ranking" of the ladder has always been more about numbers and coverage than about activity or performance. We can debate whether activity should be an important factor or not, but for now it suffices to say that numbers and coverage should, in a healthy system, be less important factors. ArenaNet have just dropped the ball on these things and have spent 11 years fumbling around in the dark for it, without adding sufficient hands and light to find it. The mode has caps so it wasn't designed to have such differing player amounts. It never was intended. Whereas coverage feels more like something they launched without and then just never got around to adress because of, well, hands and light. Every other game with a "24/7 approach" have systems in place to mediate shifting player activity. GW2 just never had that developed but it certainly could. They just have to, well, develop it. So the problem isn't that there isn't a ranking. There is a ladder. The problem is that the ladder does not reflect expected rankings and it never has.

Player-events simply needs a robust system to let players hold them. Here the problem is more of a classic ArenaNet problem where there are multiple attempts at such systems, none of which have been robust enough and none of which have seen sufficient development. Like I've alluded to in recent posts of mine: I think that problem is not that difficult to fix either and could easily be done with existing tech (and mode-wide positive improvements) instead of trying to reinvent the wheels. The mechanics we have that governs access to structures are in many cases far more robust than any other attempts of keeping players on the right. These things are best solved by a back-to-basics approach that gives players more of an empty canvas and more control over the building blocks. It doesn't need to be specifically built for player-events, it simply needs to be built broad and solid enough to let players figure out such uses and events on their own. Instead of trying to build new options to form "colors" on a map: Just have an FFA map, have other preexisting mechanics like parties, squads or guilds supercede it and let players figure out how to navigate friend-or-foe on their own. Don't try to build arenas for players who know how to do that better than you. Just give them the tools with preexisting building blocks in WvW like space, walls and capture points. Give them control over tower design and they'll figure it out. Build to support that stuff instead. Not only are those systems often more robust and preexist but by investing in them and keeping them part of a broader WvW vision (rather than exceptions) you can find other applications for them too.

So let's revisit the greatest hits:

1. Do we only need two "map systems"? Yeah, have a "world system" and a "free system".
2. Do we need borderlands? No, much like Jon-Eirik I'm fine with an "EBG" and a better "EotM" (the issue with EotM is the islands and bridges, that when populated bottles up the map; I'm not necessarily against larger, more free maps that fills a similar role as EotM - on the contrary, I am for it, I just think it needs to be built for 2024 purposes and EotM is not).
3. What do we need instead of borderlands? We need flexible instancing, just like in every other mode in GW2. More maps, at need, being able to swap maps to match up.
4. How do we balance score on a multi-map system like that? Only let relatively balanced maps generate world score across all three sides. It is a scoring-system fix.
5. What does a scoring-system like that encourage and what else does it encourage? It encourages players to spread thin and equal. Furthermore it encourages the same in off-hours.
6. So if you want to impact score as an aussie in NA or as a french-canadian in EU? Well, make sure you play against other aussies and canadians, not disproportionally distributed with them. If you want to impact score that is your choice. If you just want friends at your play hours, be prepared to play on score-frozen maps. It's on you.
7. Multi-instancing tech is already in the game
8. Objective component tech, such as wall blocks and door blocks etc., is already in the game (unleash the Valheim)
9. Timer tech (such as invulnurable walls) are already in the game
10. FFA friend-or-foe flagging tech is already in the game

Those things are enough to let players create arenas for player-events and they are even enough to let both players and developers refine that into further ideas - like hooking further guild-features to them (guild halls, upgrades, bragging rights, passive incomes, syntesizers, etc.).

As a starting point I'm even perfectly fine with "World WvW" to just be a multi-instanced EBG and "Free WvW" to be a multi-instanced football field smattered with 20 odd tower spots and the ability to place some walls, doors and a capture point. It doesn't have to be more elaborate than that. Everything else can be refined later if the base systems are robust and ready to go. I don't care how many variations of EBG (world) they make as long as they are good. The same goes for a revamp of EotM (free). They could have multiple variations of maps for such a system as long as they were built to fit its purpose. It will then be super easy for ArenaNet to just introduce more maps as "content" and more objective components (walls, dorrs, etc.) additional "content". They could even sell some such things for gems - fancy-looking tower-customisation options.

Summed up:

• That's 10 steps with alot of preexisting tech that solves both the "ranking" (world, score) and "competition" (free; player events and structures) issues.
• Add Alliances/WR under that for the world-system and you have a foundation that is starting to look pretty good, beyond just 2014 WR for WvW in 2024.
• I think it is important to underline though: WR isn't "needed" since multi-instancing + scoring alone can solve most of the issues. However, this far into development it would be rather nice to have along side multi-instancing +  scoring - just to make sure you can more easily play with your friends and since player-group components fit better even into this kind of a "world" + "free" mode.
• The problem as always is that ArenaNet not only have terrible management that try to reinvent wheels but also that their management are not spending sufficient resources on WvW to achieve these things within a forseeable future - even if we just expect them to restart by hooking existing tech onto a plain field.

Edited September 29, 2023 by subversiontwo.7501

[Hesione.9412]

5 minutes ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

I'm hopping into the thread out of the blue now and just quoting you for a hook in, so I may miss some things that have been said, but this felt like a good place to start.

It feels like people are overthinking things in this thread:

WvW already has a "ranked" system and a "competetive" system. It has always had them in the ladder and GvG (or player-made events). To some degree they are even organic as in groups meeting on maps and they can then decide to take it further if they want to be more "competetive" about it, in some player-made event. We, the players, sort those things out ourselves well enough.

To elaborate for whoever cares enough to read:

  Reveal hidden contents

These things have always existed in WvW but the problems with them have always existed as well: The "ranking" of the ladder has always been more about numbers and coverage than about activity or performance. We can debate whether activity should be an important factor or not, but for now it suffices to say that numbers and coverage should, in a healthy system, be less important factors. ArenaNet have just dropped the ball on these things and have spent 11 years fumbling around in the dark for it, without adding sufficient hands and light to find it. The mode has caps so it wasn't designed to have such differing player amounts. It never was intended. Whereas coverage feels more like something they launched without and then just never got around to adress because of, well, hands and light. Every other game with a "24/7 approach" have systems in place to mediate shifting player activity. GW2 just never had that developed but it certainly could. They just have to, well, develop it. So the problem isn't that there isn't a ranking. There is a ladder. The problem is that the ladder does not reflect expected rankings and it never has.

Player-events simply needs a robust system to let players hold them. Here the problem is more of a classic ArenaNet problem where there are multiple attempts at such systems, none of which have been robust enough and none of which have seen sufficient development. Like I've alluded to in recent posts of mine: I think that problem is not that difficult to fix either and could easily be done with existing tech (and mode-wide positive improvements) instead of trying to reinvent the wheels. The mechanics we have that governs access to structures are in many cases far more robust than any other attempts of keeping players on the right. These things are best solved by a back-to-basics approach that gives players more of an empty canvas and more control over the building blocks. It doesn't need to be specifically built for player-events, it simply needs to be built broad and solid enough to let players figure out such uses and events on their own. Instead of trying to build new options to form "colors" on a map: Just have an FFA map, have other preexisting mechanics like parties, squads or guilds supercede it and let players figure out how to navigate friend-or-foe on their own. Don't try to build arenas for players who know how to do that better than you. Just give them the tools with preexisting building blocks in WvW like space, walls and capture points. Give them control over tower design and they'll figure it out. Build to support that stuff instead. Not only are those systems often more robust and preexist but by investing in them and keeping them part of a broader WvW vision (rather than exceptions) you can find other applications for them too.

1. So if you want to impact score as an aussie in NA or as a french-canadian in EU? Well, make sure you play against other aussies and canadians, not disproportionally distributed with them. If you want to impact score that is your choice. If you just want friends at your play hours, be prepared to play on score-frozen maps. It's on you.

Saying that people in OCX should have to play in hours while they are sleeping/at work is unrealistic, and mean.

[subversiontwo.7501]

Just now, Hesione.9412 said:

Saying that people in OCX should have to play in hours while they are sleeping/at work is unrealistic, and mean.

Yeah people always retort with that comment, but then you didn't read the post.

• It says that people in OCX has the option to find OCX opponents or only try to find friends and get frozen maps.
• In that OCX is treated no different than NA or EU. If NA or EU clumps up on few worlds they will also get frozen maps under the same system.
• It's just harder for more populated hours or timezones to clump up in few places. However, the onus is the same.
• To me, it is many times more mean to let a minority clump up on few worlds and then ruin score for everyone.

[Hesione.9412]

1 minute ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

Yeah people always retort with that comment, but then you didn't read the post.

• It says that people in OCX has the option to find OCX opponents or only try to find friends and get frozen maps.
• In that OCX is treated no different than NA or EU. If NA or EU clumps up on few worlds they will also get frozen maps under the same system.
• It's just harder for more populated hours or timezones to clump up in few places. However, the onus is the same.
• To me, it is many times more mean to let a minority clump up on few worlds and then ruin score for everyone.

How many guilds do you think run large during OCX/SEA? How am I or my guildmates supposed to prevent server bandwaggoning? How are OCX people ruining the score? Exactly how many skirmishes do you think are in OCX time compared to NA?

I did read the post. It's mean.

[subversiontwo.7501]

Just now, Hesione.9412 said:

How many guilds do you think run large during OCX/SEA? How am I or my guildmates supposed to prevent server bandwaggoning? How are OCX people ruining the score? Exactly how many skirmishes do you think are in OCX time compared to NA?

I did read the post. It's mean.

I have no idea how you have formed guilds in OCX/SEA. Like I said, the system treats OCX no different than NA or EU in terms of onus to find opponents when you play.

WvW was designed for players to fight both players and doors. Not just doors.

You sound like anything that doesn't let you fight just doors is mean.

If you have similar amounts of players to fight, it isn't an issue for you.

[Hesione.9412]

Just now, subversiontwo.7501 said:

I have no idea how you have formed guilds in OCX/SEA. Like I said, the system treats OCX no different than NA or EU in terms of onus to find opponents when you play.

WvW was designed for players to fight both players and doors. Not just doors.

You sound like anything that doesn't let you fight just doors is mean.

If you have similar amounts of players to fight, it isn't an issue for you.

I asked four questions. You replied without answering any of them.

[subversiontwo.7501]

7 minutes ago, Hesione.9412 said:

I asked four questions. You replied without answering any of them.

I'm not obligated to answer any of your questions.

I'm interested in explaining the suggestion I made, for you, the suggestion you had reservations with and called ... mean.

As far as the suggested scoring system goes, it only has two variables:

A) Do you have sufficient players to fight? The system provides world score regardless if you are OCX, NA or EU.

B) Do you not have sufficient players to fight? The system does not provide world score regardless if you are OCX, NA or EU.

If that means you need to break up your 300-man OCX PPT guild or not is not really of my concern.

Edited September 29, 2023 by subversiontwo.7501

[XenesisII.1540]

Don't need to keep shuffling the ppt'ers in with the wvw'ers, just do a separation of them instead.

Make eotm earn full wvw rewards.

Remove ppt from wvw and leave it in eotm, only operate with ppk in wvw maps, attach map wide small stat bonuses to objectives instead as a reason to cap objectives.

Reduce the server/worlds down to like 9, (use permanent links if you have to).

Reduce wvw map caps to 40 (this is how you manage boon blobs with a 50 squad cap in place). You want to play with 50 well eotm awaits you.

Let the ppt/ktrainers move to eotm for their pve trains again(you know they will), let the remaining fighters/competitive players duke it out in wvw.

Make up seasonal play for a nice reward, people will still run from each other I'm sure, and still hunt weaker enemies, but hey that's what boon balling is suppose to help.

There, you want the nice reward you need to actually fight each other for it. We don't need to keep reshuffling the pugs around, let eotm give them the green blue red shuffle every week.