Balance suggestion (big guilds will hate this)

[exeggcuter.8394]

Simply prevent outnumbering from happening.

 

Map que's are currently a thing. But right now the only thing, to my knowledge, able to cause a map que, is when there's a certain number of your own team on the map.

It is not at all affected by the number on the other teams.

The only workable way to prevent the horrendous number imbalance which plagues WvW is to deny entrance to players on a currently overstacked team.

 

Suggested math:

Sum up the current number of players on each team on all maps.

Compare that to the other teams, and add a fixed amount, if the team already has too many, well, then all the maps will be qued until the other teams have more log on, or the overstacked team has players who log off. Importantly, this will be a separate type of map que. You can still hop between maps that are not yet full.

 

A potential example for devs at Anet:

Lets say the formula is no team can have more than 50% more than the other two teams put together +5 players.

Red has a full 50 man squad who wants to play.

Blue has 10 roamers online.

Green has 15 roamers online.

(15+10)*1.5 + 5 = 42.5 . So, 8 people in that 50 man squad will be in que, assuming those 50 are the only ones on red team at that moment. Those 42 players can hop maps at will since it's an overstacked - type que. Those 8 players will not get to play until some reds log off, OR if more greens / blues log on.

 

I can't think of any other game where this kind of overstacked imbalance is even allowed, mechanically! Restructuring won't fix this. Alliances won't fix this. Going back to the old server system won't fix this. Denying entry to overstacked teams' players MIGHT fix this.

 

Above all else though, blame the players for putting themselves on overstacked teams. Ya'll suck.

[ChrisWhitey.9076]

Until the queue bug is fixed this is going to cause a whole bunch of issues. I don't hate this idea as long as EotM rewards were equal to pips and if there are seasonal rewards and big groups miss out EotM rewards would need to be higher than that of live WvW.

Edit*
Season rewards as in reference to  https://youtu.be/tgduXol9jEk

Edited July 24 by ChrisWhitey.9076
Added link

[ChrisWhitey.9076]

Also depending on how many people cannot play because of side restrictions we may need 2 or 3 additional tiers.

[Dawdler.8521]

10 hours ago, exeggcuter.8394 said:

A potential example for devs at Anet:

Lets say the formula is no team can have more than 50% more than the other two teams put together +5 players.

Red has a full 50 man squad who wants to play.

Blue has 10 roamers online.

Green has 15 roamers online.

(15+10)*1.5 + 5 = 42.5 . So, 8 people in that 50 man squad will be in que, assuming those 50 are the only ones on red team at that moment. Those 42 players can hop maps at will since it's an overstacked - type que. Those 8 players will not get to play until some reds log off, OR if more greens / blues log on.

Since you say those 8 players "will not get to play" that must mean your 42 and a half player is global, otherwise they'd just be on another border. Which means that those 42 players will mapcap ALL four maps The 15 cant play together either, mapcap is 10. 

With a mapcap of 10 you have the same situation. All three sides could fight 1:1 fair on a single map sure.  But that has already depleted blue, they have 0 on other maps. And green will fight outnumbered 1:2 if they all go another map and at worst 1:10.

If you didnt mean that and mapcap is instead at 42 for each side on each map, well then it matters little because you still have 25 vs 42 in best case scenario of blue and green working together and in worst case scenario both blue and green having empty borders vs a dominating red with presence on multiple border still outnumbering them.

TL;DR blue and green are still totally outnumbered no matter the cap.

[SweetPotato.7456]

to prevent outnumber, when a team is outnumbered by the other team , the small group of people will be automatically move to eotm. and they will not be outnumbered anymore.

 

[Riba.3271]

If your focus is to keep numbers equal, it is better to adopt following system:

- No tiers/servers, just 3 colours, but more maps are added as existing maps start getting filled up

- Team (single player, guild, blob, roamergroup) joins WvW map and get thrown into the most outnumbered team

- The next team that queues for that map gets thrown into the new outnumbered team

- If you want to join an outnumbering team that is already on a map, you can first join their squad then queue up to that side and get in after both enemy teams gets 1 more player

- If you leave squad/party or it gets disbanded, you get kicked out of the map. However you can join existing squads/parties provided youre not in one yet.

Positives of such system:

1. If you are already outnumbering enemies, any new group on the map will be for the enemies.

2. All maps will never be queued since more maps will be added

3. All teams will have similar amount of players

Negatives of such system:

1. Since you can be any colour depending on when you join and there is only 1 tier, score won't matter (but it doesn't matter in restructuring anyways)

2. Bigger guilds will probably struggle with queues less, so amount of them might spike

3. Asymmetric map design won't make any sense (home borderlands)

Edited July 25 by Riba.3271

[Chaba.5410]

12 hours ago, exeggcuter.8394 said:

Suggested math:

Sum up the current number of players on each team on all maps.

Compare that to the other teams, and add a fixed amount, if the team already has too many, well, then all the maps will be qued until the other teams have more log on, or the overstacked team has players who log off. Importantly, this will be a separate type of map que. You can still hop between maps that are not yet full.

This sort of suggestion has come up multiple times over the years and always suffers from the same problem.  Outnumbered teams will be telling everyone to get off the maps in order to force the larger team to get queued.  And by "telling" I'm referring to an increase in toxicity that already occurs under more casual contexts.

Also, didn't you consider how hostile such a design would be to players on the larger team trying to play?  Imagine new players trying to understand why they aren't allowed to hop into WvW.  It won't be only big guilds hating this.

[TexZero.7910]

This only incentivizes not logging in.

I'm not saying i like facing map queues but there has to be a better solution than just log-out and make everyone miserable by proxy.

Edited July 25 by TexZero.7910

[joneirikb.7506]

Essentially this is trying to fix what EotM already does decently right.

The last 6 months on the forum is just making me more and more curious how many complaints in WvW would be solved if EotM got EBG + PIPS + Mount/Glider.

[TheGrimm.5624]

I am in a tiny guild. No this wouldn't work. If a guild can and chooses to draw more, all the more to them. They are open to bring in more to group. That is fair. Keep Guild and Alliances numbers in line. 

[Crowfang.8529]

Outnumbered alliances should at least earn more points based on the ratio of total players who are in WvW. It's utterly boring fighting an ennemy who is 4/5 times more numerous.

[Hesione.9412]

Make outnumbered people immortal and give them every boon, for as long as they are outnumbered.