Guild Wars 2

DevonCarver.5370:

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

For NA I’d say something along the lines of these prices

Ranks 22-24 = free
Ranks 16-21 = 800
Ranks 10-15 = 1200
Ranks 4-9 = 1600
Ranks 1-3 = 2400

There needs to be a large increase when considering the top three servers, their population doubles that of the next 3 closest servers with the only exception being TC.

You would also need to provide incentives beyond lower prices though, as many people will not see moving even if its free worth while if the server is “dead” in their opinion.

I admire your toying with the idea Devon but its almost a case of to little to late to just give reduced pricing. Of course I could be wrong /shrug give it a whirl see how it goes.

how is scaling transfer costs going to fix anything when you have servers willing to pay for guilds to transfer ? – that path is moot.

what you need is to give guilds incentives to compete against each other – not stack and compete against the rest.

It should be of greater value for the best ranked guilds to fight the best ranked guilds for higher ranks – you won’t get that if the incentive to win is having the most coverage with the best ranked guilds teaming up to fight pugs and smaller guilds- the people that stay behind on lower servers because they aren’t as militant about wvw as the t1 minds are.

you need to break up those big alliances and make them call off all bets because they need to fight each other to get anywhere higher up. That will balance the servers more than something an alliance of guilds is willing to chip in for to get a mutual win.

major guild alliances should be detrimental to your individual guild ranking score.

hit em right in the gut! – why should I share my rank with You ?! my guild is better!

Nuzt.7894:

I have posted my suggestion, I’ve put up the video to my suggestion and while it may not be what everyone wants it does address all the issues in WvW and doesn’t mess with PPT at all. Sure its not what everyone wants, the suggestion everyone agrees with will never happen. I think my part of his quote was pretty clear, PPT does not make unbalanced matches fun for the server(s) getting steam rolled. PPT is just a number at the top of your screen, it doesn’t make fights more enjoyable, it doesn’t make all sides even, it doesn’t prevent 1-2 servers dominating the actual battles/fun factor. Your entitled to your suggestion I just don’t see how it will fix the real issue, which is the lack of enjoyment that comes with 1-2 servers preventing another server from doing much more then killing yaks do to population.

I’m not trying to be argumentative either, just trying to point out the flaw in tweaking the PPT, which does not change anything when it comes to enjoying your playtime.

I guess some people might enjoy dying every couple minutes to a huge zerg that they cannot pull enough numbers on the map to compete with as long as the score tells them they won.

You keep completely ignoring the effect of morale when criticizing PPT adjustments. Then you make ludicrous “counter-arguments” against them like somehow a handicap would make the losing server into the winning server when no one suggested anything of the sort. This doesn’t strengthen your argument, it weakens it. I don’t think it is any stretch of the imagination to say that a number of people look at the score, see that the gap in total number is absolutely huge, and decide not to enter WvW. Or, they see their server is ticking some some insignificant number and likewise make the same choice. The whole concept is that with a closer score more players would be persuaded to come and play instead of thinking that nothing they do matters or will influence the results of the match.

In any case, PPT is only one part of the puzzle. As mentioned previously:
a) morale
b) power of zergs versus smaller numbers
c) incentives for zerging
are all elements that can be tackled in tandem by ANet without uprooting the entire system which is not likely to happen. Especially given that their current priorities are the GvG map, and the new overflowing map and they’ve made no indication that they’re willing to completely re-design WvW from an architecture level on up.

style.6173:

Wrong. Without touching world population (that would be a convenient name for a collaboration discussion), we are just putting a band aid on the problem. The only solution to keep servers balanced is to separate PvE server from WvW server. This way they can actively manage the cap of players on each server. That will force even numbers.

Without a “World Population” fix or discussion, people will always navigate to the winning server. That’s also the answer to why people bandwagon.

How do you define population? Total players on the server(terrible)? Concurrent users(works only at certain times/days)? “Active” players? What about casuals? How do you count population over the weekend versus throughout the week? How do you account for population at different time zones?

Change the scoring to:

(a) Supplies consumed via fort upgrades.
(b) Supplies -not yet spent – stolen when the fort is taken.

Each supply scores 1. Supplies not yet spent shown on the map.

This would counter zerging (although it would remain an option – raid like) and flipping (would be worthless) and reduce the effect of time coverage (no points would be scored if the fort could not be further upgraded).

This would still bias WvW towards larger numbers, but I believe would lead to more interesting tactics and smaller scale more defensive fighting.

Would also reduce the life-span of dollies…

diminishing returns – the larger the alliance of big guilds on one server – the less the returns to individual guild rankings. that saying, introducing a guild ranking system around that school of thought may change the game some – after all the only thing important to a guild willing to abandon their server in the first place is the score.

Grab them by the score and rate their guilds with diminishing returns for being clumped up. a triple a guild should have to fight a triple a guild for guild xp – ranks – just like in pve – you need to fight a monster your level or higher to level up.

that would not only cause the guilds to spread out – but may encourage massive transfers among that crowd trying to organize fights vs people they need to level up lol – would be funny and generate tons of cash as a result of them trying to balance out the servers for optimal guild ratings – smaller guilds will have to merge with bigger guilds – and big guilds will have to find servers with no big guilds. it’d be great!

would cause total chaos and mayhem with the bandwagon guilds haha!! woot!

bonus gxp for server loyalty – haha!!

-high five-

Well I guess I will throw in my 2 cents here and see where it lands.
>>>Idea: outnumbered objective defenders buff.

The idea came to me when I thought about what the core of the problem is. To me that is the server with the biggest zerg per map actively engaged in taking objectives. As of now, taking objectives is a piece of cake when you have 50 people behind you and little to no resistance. This could change.
What is an objective and how can we change it?
Example: supply camp outlined by border, x number of guards at level x with x number of abilities. So here comes the 50 person zerg, guards are burned in seconds, now the timer counts down and soon the zerg is on its way.
So what is the solution?
After the timer tics to zero, the supply camp goes into phase 2 using its border as reference. The total number of enemy players vs friendly players is continually tallied, as is the siege of both sides. This tally will determine the power of the defenders buff. The defenders buff will spawn new guards, as well as give the overwhelmed player defenders increased survivability. These guards have vastly increased toughness, power, AI (one can hope), and even new skills. For supply camps, I think it would be great to see the guards have priority on resurrecting players, and give them abilities to accomplish this task. Guards are invulnerable to sources of damage outside of the supply camp border, and these guards lose aggro when going outside of the supply camp border. Friendly players inside the objective also have increased toughness, but not power, and are vulnerable to outside sources of damage. It might be considered that these players gain x number of stacks of defiant, to prevent enemies from simply using a pulling type skill to get them outside of the objective. Perhaps when (5-10) stacks of defiant runs out, it is refreshed after a set amount of time. This phase 2 is reset after a set amount of time.
What does this mean for towers and keeps?
The basic principle would remain the same. When (80%) of the opposing force is inside the lords room border, the objective resets into phase 2. Now, the opposing force must recapture key points inside the objective. For towers, this would be the courtyard area where the supplies are, walls, (2nd supply depot like Cragtop) and finally the lords room again. For keeps, 50% of the gates, walls, courtyards, inner walls, inner courtyards, and then the grand prize of the lords room. I believe the 50% will encourage cooperation between players while making it a challenging and rewarding experience. Instead of guards having increased resurrection capabilities, it might make more sense for the defending players to simply waypoint to the lords room when dead. This would give the opposing side momentum, and the chance for the defenders to regroup and restrategize. I believe it would be wise to leave the guards with the outside source damage immunity buff, as it would punish large groups and at the same time drive them forward.
Alright, I think that about sums it up. I know there are several holes in this idea, as well as flat out opposition. If you have constructive criticism, great. Anything that will fine tune this idea is appreciated. Do not agree with anything I have posted? Thats fine, lets create and eliminate ways to fix this state which we find ourselves in.

DevonCarver.5370:

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

Here is a suggestion to keep it simple. Basically just 300 gems per tier.

T1 = 2100
T2 = 1800
T3 = 1500
T4 = 1200
T5 = 900
T6 = 600
T7= 300
T8 = Free
T9 = Free

Of course, T1 servers will still pay for peoples transfers making them essentially free. However, if Anet wanted to milk that they could bump the T1 transfer rate even higher.

Also I’d suggest doing an average of the last months ratings, so people can’t take advantage of momentary fluctuations.

DevonCarver.5370:

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

price for server transfer should based on server rank. the lower the rank, the lower the cost of transfer.

anyway, lower the map cap please…… the rest will take care on its own….

Visiroth.5914:

Relying on players to destack themselves is a losing proposition. What incentive is there for someone to leave their current server for a lower tier server. And if it happens how do we ensure that the population doesn’t try to stack on a single lower tier server, which has happened many times.

You got the wrong question… The real question is : What incentive is there for someone to leave their current server. It doesn’t matter if they want to leave for a lower or a higher server. Why do they want to leave their server?

If a server start getting a lot of transfer, it will go up in ranking and the transfer will stop. Problem solved. Tier 1 server are staying tier 1 because they get a constant influx of transfer. It’s not skill, it’s transfer.

Currently it’s : Pay to win.

But restricting transfer to higher server would make it : Play to win

Restricting can come in many forms like :

- Making server transfer cost increase the higher the server is ranked
- Making server transfer cost the double if you transfer to a server higher ranked than yours.

Also, making guild and community stay on their server is very important and should be prioritize even over transferring to a lower ranked server. So, even the last tier should not be free. Make it cost less, but not free.

azizul.8469:

anyway, lower the map cap please…… the rest will take care on its own….

Creating long queue is always a bad idea and surely the best way to drive people off the game. Did you ever enjoy spending time in queue? I didn’t and don’t think anyone ever had.

Adding a new map for people in queue is a great idea by Anet.

This is NOT a solution to population imbalance.

1-2 refuting some idea Devon seems to like, #3 for the juicy content
Sorry for the big block of text Devon, but I’m sure you could find some interesting stuff in there :P

1- The gem rate with the state of the economy is kitten and an alliance can easily put the gold up to “buy” guilds. (Not the real problem)

2- Different costs for world transfers will not be welcomed by the guilds/people that PvE. As much as I want a solution, I dont think we should be hasty and greedy with this sort of things. And probably the only reason ANET is ok with trying it out is that a failure of this causing balance (which it is pretty much guaranteed to) will still generate them more profit than the regular price (if the gems are bought with real money)

3- I’m gonna repeat this and other players have done the same, as much as it implies a big change, it was a structural mistake to associate PvE & WvW, they need to separate the two.
They could easily create something of the sort of an alliance with a cap on the maximum # of heads that can be in it. It will be a lot easier for ANET to moderate total possible population.

WvW focused guilds generally have a roster of 100-150 with 30-60 active on a daily basis, from what I have seen out there from all servers (these are general #s, some guilds may fit outside these #s). We also know that the hard cap, imposed by the game for a guild roster is 500. Now we know each map has a cap somewhere between 80-120 (ANET has for sure the true #) We also know WvW is intended to be a 24/7 game mode and its fine like that.

That said, knowing all those numbers, if an alliance system that counted guilds/total players in said guilds, it would be possible to manage an alliance’s total headcount. Now ANET said multiple times that the mode is not intended to be “fair”. So they could cap the alliance in such a manner where an alliance would never be able to fill all 4 maps 24/7 and where stacking a time zone could hurt you in another (pure speculation). But at least they would have real numbers and could tweak population to balance in whatever way they see fit with the most player satisfaction (we will never all agree).

Now to address the last big problem with this solution. No more server transfers = no more profit for ANET. Addressing this issue can be very simple. Treat alliances the same way you used to with server transfers. If you look through the history of the big 3 servers from T1, not only are guilds moving from one server to the other, but also when you see the rise/fall of a server, its generally the same players/guilds that are still present. And alliances will break and (re)form constantly. Even that adding an actual cost to alliances (like transfers) on top of having to be accepted into an alliance by those present in it (playing with the players/guilds you want to and enjoy aka much less griefing and bad behaviour)…
Or selling the possibility to create an alliance (requiring multiple guilds to start one or a certain # of players)
Improved UI for chain of command/roles in an alliance and much more that can not only fix WvW population, but improve the overall experience.

DevonCarver.5370:

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

Primarily it should be influenced by the target server’s Glicko, but the player’s own experience in WvW should count for something as well, i.e. a strict PvEr with no achievement points in WvW could transfer to the same server for less, since they won’t be influencing any match outcomes anyway.

So something like:

cost = max( server_glicko x 2 + player_wvw_achievement_points x 5 – 2000, 0 )

would be fine by me. You can alter the multipliers depending on how influential you want Glicko vs personal WvW points to be.

maybe get the ball rolling by encouraging movement from T1 by offering some nice wvw finishers for players who move to one of the lower tiers.

DevonCarver.5370:

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

I would say that a server transfer fee price reduction should applied in a binary fashion to target specific servers (i.e. 1800 gems or free), rather than a linear scaling across all tiers. The problem with applying a linear (or even a non-linear) scale to transfer fees is that it makes the middle tiers much more attractive. If you offer no other incentives to actually transfer to (or to stay on) the bottom tier server but also reduce the price to transfer to the middle tiers, then I think that you will find that those mid tiers become the most attractive destination. In fact, it would likely encourage MORE people to abandon the lowest tier servers.

I will therefore echo what several others have already said in response to your questions, and which I pointed out earlier a few pages ago. A transfer fee price reduction on its own is likely insufficient. This reduction will reduce the barriers to transferring down to a lower tier server. However, you also need to add meaningful incentives to encourage people to move.

With that said, standalone price reductions on carefully targeted servers are certainly a good start. I think that further design effort is needed to encourage more movement, but this would represent a very low-cost (transfers themselves have zero actual backend cost associated with them from a tech perspective, we have seen that the ability to adjust prices already exists so there should be a relatively low dev-time cost here) method of kicking off the process while working on better solutions.

DevonCarver.5370:

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

Seriously? That’s your best take-away from this discussion so far

This is so frigging depressing ….

If you did offer free transfers to certain servers, it might be worthwhile to consider the sort of targetted transfers that many other games do. For example, the #1, #4, #7, #10 servers can all transfer to the #24 server. #2, #5, #8, #11 servers can all xfer to the #23 server, etc…

The upside of this type of proposal is that it prevents coordinated stacking on a single server and balances the transfers more evenly across the targetted tier(s).

The downside of this type of proposal is that some guilds with a strong but friendly rivalry (if such things actually exist) might find some incentive to transfer to the same destination server and to team up with their former rivals.

I would not put free transfers to the lowest tiers. That would just encourage guilds to move there ROFL Stomp back up the ranks which is what people QQ’d about back when we had free transfers. I remeber playing on NSP when Kaineng got a bunch of guilds just before they shut down free transfers. Those were some very unpleasant weeks and I sure as hell would not want that to happen again. If you are going to go the Tier transfer fee it should range between 400 to 2400gems.

I would prefer seeing things like fortifications (doors/walls etc) and guards scale up to the size of the enemy zerg and an outnumber buff that actually is actually worth something along the lines as siege require less supply, stronger siege effects/damage, increased movement speed.)

DevonCarver.5370:

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

I remember at the beginning there was – SERVER STATUS:FULL

Why you can’t make separate server statuses for PvE/WvW shown in Server select ?

e.g. Piken Square PvE: Medium/WvW:FULL

This way you can avoid destroying server’s internal WvW organization like you did several times with your free transfers to Piken Square.

PvE have the GUESTING feature already and server transfers are mostly if not always based on WvW now sadly players are only one who realize that yet.

If we wanted new WvW oriented players there is a RECRUITMENT forums where we can invite more players over while we calculate and adjust our WvW queues internally.

No More Free Transfers !
No More Transfers for less than 10 000 GEMS to Tier 1 / 7 000 Tier 2 / 4 000 Tier 3 !

This way you will populate bottom tiers server like Vabbi and equally distribute the Guild Wars 2 WvW Population.

Abandoning the home world should come with a great sacrifice in face of blood price payed with a lot of GEMS.

The handicap solutions are way too convoluted and unintuitive when the obvious Occam’s razor (excuse this freer application of the saying) solution would be to just to divorce WvW servers from PvE and make everyone chose a new one, plus fixing the more concretely gameplay issue, the momentum dilemma.

Obviously most people would flock towards a new server that shares most of their ex-server buddies (which is desirable), except for those who chose to go on a stacked server, which would then be forced to spread out and mix with the likes of Vabbi.
This would, as a I again stress, by necessity implicate regional IP restrictions. Europe/Africa, Americas, and Asia/Pacific.

DevonCarver.5370:

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

As a rough guideline, make the top 3 over 3000 gems and the lowest 6 servers free.
That way they would receive a constant trickle of players and guilds from upper servers who are looking for a fresh start, for less zerging and less queues, etc., and once they have risen in ranking due to that, other servers who require that fresh blood would drop to their position, making them free, repeat ad infinitum.

Keep in mind that the mere act of paying gems is often greater resisted than the actual cost. I would presume even if you put on a price tag of a mere 100 gems to a transfer to a lowbie server, it would still significantly reduce transfers. It’s the same as with apps on your phone that are free vs. the one that cost 2$.

Also if you go that route, I would make it depended on the number of WvWers within a given timeframe, rather than the general (+PvE) server population.

Joining in late, but has anyone suggested lowering the population cap in conjunction with changing the maps and making more BLs?

If we remove the current BLs and add in 6(or 9) smaller BLs with lower population cap. Larger servers can still have players WvW, but the population advantage will be much less noticable.

If the large server can fill the old BLs with ques, lets say of 120/map. those players could still be in WvW but instead they will be 60 and 60. While the smaller population server, who might have only 60 or less can still put up a fight in one of their BL or even hold it, since they are not swamped by a force twice their size on every map. They can make the choice to abandon one and hold another.

Mid tier fights, should see increase activity during normal NA times, but in the off hours where server with night time advantages will see less of a blowout.

Numbers I throw out are arbitrary, obviously we should tweak them to the server demands.

Julie Yann.5379:

I would not put free transfers to the lowest tiers. That would just encourage guilds to move there ROFL Stomp back up the ranks which is what people QQ’d about back when we had free transfers. I remeber playing on NSP when Kaineng got a bunch of guilds just before they shut down free transfers. Those were some very unpleasant weeks and I sure as hell would not want that to happen again. If you are going to go the Tier transfer fee it should range between 400 to 2400gems.

I think that this is less of a concern in the current league structure.

Back when a server would play the same opponents for weeks on end and it took some time for a server’s individual rating to shift to a higher tier, this was certainly a problem. However, the current league structure introduces a lot more match volatility where a given server won’t play the same teams week in and week out.

Furthermore, if you look at the Tier 8 servers (in NA at least), their populations are so badly imbalanced compared to the rest of the bronze league that they are getting badly “ROFL Stomped” as you put it every week right now. As an example, Anvil Rock has only had about 30-80 PPT at prime time every night for the last (almost) 3 weeks since the leagues started. Even if they get a pretty heavy influx of players, it might at best bring them up to a competitive level with the rest of their league.

i’m sorry, the guys discussing adjusting prices for transfers must be pver’s because hard core wvw’rs buy gems just to get more siege because there is no real gold to be made in wvw. The guilds are buying / paying the way for other guilds – what makes you think that adjusting prices is going to balance the servers ? seriously ? these guys care about 1 thing and one thing only, winning – even if they have to pay for it.

“Im in the biggest server with the best coverage and rank but I should transfer to the lowest server with worst coverage and worst rank so I can save 20 dollars on a transfer” – said nobody ever!

Gudradain.3892:

azizul.8469:

anyway, lower the map cap please…… the rest will take care on its own….

Creating long queue is always a bad idea and surely the best way to drive people off the game. Did you ever enjoy spending time in queue? I didn’t and don’t think anyone ever had.

Adding a new map for people in queue is a great idea by Anet.

This is NOT a solution to population imbalance.

queue.. ? what queue ? there is no queue in Crystal Desert

anyway.. how’s Devon doing in NSP..? i heard he was going to try to finish the season 1 meta there…..

I don’t think lowering the map cap would fix the imbalance because I don’t think that there are enough non-NA players on the NA servers to fill all NA servers even if there is a reduction in the number of players allowed on a map(don’t know about EU population problems.) I don’t need the information you have, I just have to play against a few servers and we can see what they are really lacking, as well as what is mentioned on the forums. People would probably spread out some but there will still be servers that won’t have a off hour presence or they may have some but it still won’t be able to compete since they still lack in some time zones where others can field several so they won’t be competitive. There are also 4 maps in each match which is quite a few maps for 3 servers to fill.

I also like to see the huge fights. Current full map zerg against another full map zerg is quite entertaining. I like the 3 ways also but the skill lag can get frustrating(patiently waiting for you to finish your optimization.) I don’t care to give up those fights.

People play on servers because they want what the server offers. I joined a high pop server because I liked knowing that the stuff I helped capture and upgrade isn’t likely to be reset before I log on the next time. If I was on a server that didn’t have off hour coverage, everything would be reset and possibly upgraded by the opposing server. Many joined these kind of servers for the same reason. I like to play the PPT game in addition to the rest. Other people joined smaller pop servers because of the types of fights they get there, they didn’t care so much for the fights we get in tier 1 so they went where they went.

Ricky.4706:

i’m sorry, the guys discussing adjusting prices for transfers must be pver’s because hard core wvw’rs buy gems just to get more siege because there is no real gold to be made in wvw. The guilds are buying / paying the way for other guilds – what makes you think that adjusting prices is going to balance the servers ? seriously ? these guys care about 1 thing and one thing only, winning – even if they have to pay for it.

“Im in the biggest server with the best coverage and rank but I should transfer to the lowest server with worst coverage and worst rank so I can save 20 dollars on a transfer” – said nobody ever!

Some might buy gems to turn into gold… most I know just play the TP on the side and have their guild run the jp’s for siege/donate mithril/etc. It’s generally seem like more of a group effort within the guild since everyone benefits.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

I don’t think lowering the map cap would fix the imbalance because I don’t think that there are enough non-NA players on the NA servers to fill all NA servers even if there is a reduction in the number of players allowed on a map

Very true. 60v20 or 80v20… not much of a difference.

DevonCarver.5370:

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

While I agree that this is not the main problem with WvW, this is something that could be easily altered.

At the moment, server populations (in NA) are either High or Very High (I don’t think there’s a full anymore). This is a bit of a problem when deciding which server to join when it comes to WvW. Ehmry Bay, for example, was recently listed as a Very High population server, right alongside Jade Quarry and the other incredibly stacked servers. This meant that some friends of mine that wanted to transfer back to Ebay to escape the queues has to shell out 1800 gems to return. If it’s impossible to solve server population inequalities, perhaps a more indicative population indicator and prices based off of that would be helpful. Servers that are obviously in need of transfers could be listed as 400 gems as a low, gradually moving up to 2000 or 2500 gems for the very full servers (assuming that the ‘Very High’ servers that are actually not that full are no longer lumped with the others).

This would not solve the majority of WvW problems, but it may alleviate some of the pressure from top tier servers. Since it costs the same to transfer to most of the servers, why bother choosing a lower-ranked one, even if it means hellishly long queues.

As far as solving the greater popularity disparity issues, I don’t know if it will be possible without Anet actually taking a stand that will likely be unpopular. The original “There will be queues if you all stack. You have been warned” has been undermined by the development of a queue-relief map. What may have been a way to force people to consider transferring is now just something that they will be waiting out. There is no kind way for ANet to tell players that stack servers that they’re shooting themselves in the foot with queues, and refusing to implement penalties on larger zergs means that we will inevitably not see a solution to population troubles.

sminkiottone.6972:

Why not implement a voluteer mechaninc ?

like spvp, a guy from the more populated servers can voluteer to join a less populated server for the entire duration of the league and get rewars for that :

- Wxp boost
- karma boost
- Gold boost
- Magic find boost
- The possibility to get back to the native server once the league is ended ( for free)
- Anything that can lure people out of the stacked servers, even entire guilds.

The idea is good, but it would not work for organized groups and those are needed badly to balance game after we balance population.

The idea is good anyway so it could be implemented probably.

DevonCarver.5370:

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

This could help.
Also it can’t be measured by server tank, since my server lost most of its population on WvW and we still probably have a quite high rank due the fact before season 1 we had many guilds on WvW. There has to be a way to check the population on the map or at least if the queue is forming and how long queue is needed or average time in queue..

You can try for now and them please try to build dynamic limitation of people in field system that I described. I sadly think without it there wont be enough to push people to switch servers.

@Jaytee.9513
Like I said I see your idea as having some merit, in other words I don’t discount your theory I actually stated I agree with you that players often hive to where the gains are most and often easiest.. dungeon running has clearly demonstrated this so ANET should of considered this trend and placed something into the WvW season that alters the trends.. they didn’t so what we have is a transfer debacle that has only helped in widening the server disparity.

In ref to gear.. you have confused me now. Anyone who has invested time into WvW or any facet of the game will have looked to of geared already to consider themselves fit for purpose. When I say gear I don’t just mean the “I swing a sword, I swing it again” or the nicely painted armour .. I mean all gear trinkets, backpack, armour weapons.. if you feel competent enough to run around WvW wearing greens then so be it and as I said up levellers will of course see the benefits of a nice shiney yellow or first Exo if ANET choose this path to reward. But bottom line is gear progression does not promote balance in fact it can actually hurt it so ANET quite rightly have tried to level the playing field just like they do in sPvP. Once you reach 80 and got your gear sorted it becomes a cosmetic challenge.. your goal now should be to get those greens and turn them into other colours asap.. but that takes time if your basing it on badges acquisition.. there are a plethora of ways to get yourself 99% of the way to be gear proficient outside of WvW and inside WvW.. that is down to you, your play style, your decision making and of course your time. If you play lots then it shouldn’t take long… I am on UW and have been since Aplha so gear for me isn’t an issue anymore granted.. but since the mass exodus and the transfer BS UW is a virtual WvW ghost town but than works in our favour as well sometimes.. were soft targets so the zergs arrive often and if we play smart we can farm badges for long periods of time and the amount of trash loot, mats and coin made soon add up.. I have done 12/15 achieves so far running across all maps but I appreciate everyone’s time skill and desire to participate at certain times/situations is different… but I do not buy into the idea that gear progression needs to be bolstered inside any WvW reward system.. players need to earn the right.
In saying that I am saying I agree with you in so much that risk/reward must be better handled.. high WvW pop servers that basically trounce others and run around PvD’ing wood and stone all night long with out resistance do not deserve the same share as a balanced server matchup where all servers a fighting for what they can gain… in saying that its not the fault of the players on those steamroller servers that other servers are empty.. that mess is caused by ANETS unwillingness to traffic manage the servers efficiently.. and yes it means tough love back at base but its decisions that they are going to have to face upto sooner or later because steamrollers get just as bored of an empty unrewarding matchup as much as those being steamrolled for higher loot returns because shiny rewards only count for so much in competitive game elements, unless were all happy to have it non competitive like it is for the most part now.

Luna.9640:

DevonCarver.5370:

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

I remember at the beginning there was – SERVER STATUS:FULL

Why you can’t make separate server statuses for PvE/WvW shown in Server select ?

e.g. Piken Square PvE: Medium/WvW:FULL

This way you can avoid destroying server’s internal WvW organization like you did several times with your free transfers to Piken Square.

PvE have the GUESTING feature already and server transfers are mostly if not always based on WvW now sadly players are only one who realize that yet.

If we wanted new WvW oriented players there is a RECRUITMENT forums where we can invite more players over while we calculate and adjust our WvW queues internally.

No More Free Transfers !
No More Transfers for less than 10 000 GEMS to Tier 1 / 7 000 Tier 2 / 4 000 Tier 3 !

This way you will populate bottom tiers server like Vabbi and equally distribute the Guild Wars 2 WvW Population.

Abandoning the home world should come with a great sacrifice in face of blood price payed with a lot of GEMS.

I could support this idea.. WvW pops should of always been the major factor when decising upon transfer locations/prices.

I also agree that if players choose to move to “X” server there should be a price other than gems to pay.
You wanna transfer off a bottom silver league server to a top gold tier, then if ANET have considered that location option is available then fine pay the gem price but also take note you will loose x amount of WxP ranks (with no rank rewards until you have gained those ranks back on your new server", you also face sliding scale reward penalty upto a cut off point prior to the season commencing, after that cut off any transfer comes with a complete season reward lock out.. but you still get to play with your mates if that’s your real reasoning then rewards wont be such an issue to you by default.
ANET love their metrics so surely creating a transfer/ location policy based off concurrent WvW pops assessments each month should allow ANET to set transfer location allowances/lockouts/applicable costs and then place it against a pre-defined reward/penalty scale .. would that help to better control server traffic and population stability as well as helping lower pop servers to build, surely it cant be as hard as ANET are trying to make out.. tough decisions are needed to be made before WvW looses players from both sides of the population probelm.

Free transfers to any tier lower than the one you’re currently on, 800 gems to go to a server that’s in a higher teir than your current one, except for tier 1, which is 5000 gems.

Tbh offering free transfers to move down could also create an issue…. guilds and servers for that matter could take it as an easy way to tank down for the easy win next season.. the issues needs to be addressed more carefully than that imo… look what we have already seen in season 1

Variations in cost of server transfers will not solve the current imbalances in WvW population. It will also not touch the influx of new WvW players. They can still join the sever with the highest WvW population for free.

You have to encourage/corrupt new players to chose a low pop server. Maybe you could offer a WvW starter pack with boosts, blueprints, badges of honor and WXP. The lower the WvW population of a server is the better the starter pack is filled. If you accept the starter pack you are bound for six months to this server.

For existing players we would also need a kind of transfer box with nice perks in it to encourage people or even guilds (guild box?) to transfer. Maybe you could place special offers (boxes for guilds and players; maybe even gems) for transfers limited in time and numbers for each server and simultaneously introduce dynamic map caps.

Another black box for me is Edge of the Mists. I can’t rate the attractiveness at the moment. Many players stated in posts they would not care about server ranks and PPT. They would look for good fights. If the new map satisfies their needs they will simply leave the traditional WvW forever/for a bigger portion of time. I am not able the guess the numbers. If they are high it could literally kill server with low WvW population.

On the other hand Edge of the Mists removes the current queues. At least will not feel like a traditional queue more like WvW without PPT. A lower map cap on the traditional map would therefore much less painful.

Changing transfer costs will NOT change anything. Here’s why:

1)If a guild wants to move, they WILL move. No matter the cost.
2)Many servers will partially or fully pay the transfer costs for those guilds anyways so, again, money isn’t a concern.
3)You’ve made free transfers possible to “medium” population servers in the past. For NA those were the low tiers ones and it did not make a single difference at all. For EU, it didn’t change anything either (other than 2 high tier servers getting mass transferred).The reason people don’t go down there isn’t because of the price…. it’s because of the quality of the wvw. Hardcore WvW guilds don’t want to fights doors, pug zergs or pve guilds. They want to fight other hardcore wvw guilds and you can’t find many of those in the low tiers. Many guilds/players also want to be able to play wvw at any time of the day (24/7). Only high tier servers can provide that.

If you change prices all it will do is act as a bigger gold sink and fill your pockets with more money. Nothing else.

Anet…….. fixing this issue is going to negatively impact one group of players no matter what solution. You can’t please everyone and this is a problem that is going to need a harsh but fair solution. I’m starting to favor reducing map caps more and more as I think about. It will solve almost EVERY issue with WvW right now.

Reducing map caps will:
1)Reduce the effects of skill lag – a huge problem as well
2)Tone down the power of offensive siege – less people → less supply → less omega golems
3)Solve stacking. The real problem right now is coverage and each server’s off-peak population. Getting top tier servers to destack but only have NA guilds leave won’t solve anything….. they’ll still have their massive off-peak presence that is triple/quadruple the size of servers lower down. Oceanic/SEA/EU prime time is where the destacking needs to happen and right now there’s nothing to encourage it because the queues aren’t bad for them. Reducing map caps will make these off-peak timezones experience the kind of queues that T1 servers are currently experiencing during NA prime time – this will promote real destacking. This also means that smaller servers won’t have to deal with 80 man blobs during off-peak and trying to defend with only 30 people. 30 people can handle 50.
4)Edge of the Mists is going to come out. Yes, reducing map caps will make queues worse but instead of standing around in boredom, people can still play WvW while waiting in queue but at least population disparity won’t be such a huge problem since it won’t have such a gigantic influence on the score (less so than now at least).

The map cap right now is about 100. I think dropping it to 50 is a little extreme but 75 I can see working out quite well.

tier 1: 2000 gems
1 tier or more up: 750 gems
1 tier or more down: free

People talking about mass guild transfers are missing the point IMO. Any kind of population normalisation is good where WVW is concerned.

mjharrison.3209:

tier 1: 2000 gems
1 tier or more up: 750 gems
1 tier or more down: free

People talking about mass guild transfers are missing the point IMO. Any kind of population normalisation is good where WVW is concerned.

And why would this lead to population normalization?
Would people suddenly start transferring just because they changed the prices?

Nuzt.7894:

DevonCarver.5370:

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

For NA I’d say something along the lines of these prices

Ranks 22-24 = free
Ranks 16-21 = 800
Ranks 10-15 = 1200
Ranks 4-9 = 1600
Ranks 1-3 = 2400

There needs to be a large increase when considering the top three servers, their population doubles that of the next 3 closest servers with the only exception being TC.

You would also need to provide incentives beyond lower prices though, as many people will not see moving even if its free worth while if the server is “dead” in their opinion.

I admire your toying with the idea Devon but its almost a case of to little to late to just give reduced pricing. Of course I could be wrong /shrug give it a whirl see how it goes.

I could see this as reasonable costs.

Free opens up the idea of some WvW people tryin to pull a “Kaineng”. Is that a bad thing? I don’t actually know. Even if much of those WvW people transferred off Kaineng, is Kaineng’s WvW population better off than if no mass transfer to it had happened?

In some games I played, once you create an account into a server you cannot move no matter what: that creates the basis for “server pride”, because levelling has a cost and you will feel more inclined to “defend your home”.
If you wanted to play in another server, you had to start from scratches again (no money, no gear, nothing…).

The way points system is designed is the major problem for the current scenario: “fixed timed tick for holding structures”. It is obvious that the more players you have, the easier will be to score very high.

How could this be fixed?

It’s not that hard. Remove (or greatly nerf) structures holding tick, and tremendously boost points for each player stomped.

Example:

Let’s say each players stomped is reward with, say, 100 points, while if it is just killed the reward is 30 points

“100 players zerg meet 20 players guild raid in open field: they engage in combat. The zerg easily get rid of the 20 players but:

- the Guild stomps 20 foes (20 × 100 = 2000) and kill 10 (10 × 30 = 300) is awarded with a total of = 2.300 points
- the 100 players mindless zerg stomps 5 (5 × 100) and dps to death the remaining 15 foes being awarded (15 x30) = 450 points for a total of (500 + 450) = 950 points

this completely solves night capping (after all, you can happily run the whole night in an empty map but you cannot kill something that is not there, and this won’t give you any points), rewards smart playing (a barrage of arrowcarts will kill a lot of players, ok, but to gain more points you must stomp, and in open field combat the quality will rule over quantity) and strongly encourage teamwork.

If you don’t feel like completely removing tick per structures, have them tick per minute and lower the value to be nearly marginal:

example:

1 point per minute for Stonemist
0.5p per minute for Garrison/Keep
0.25 per minute for towers
0.1 per minute for camps
0.05 per minute for sentries

this is fair. Usually, many high WvW population servers, tend to cap just before the tick, just because it’s easier against a smaller force and rewards you the same way, without having to choose any kind of tactic.

This is no fun. Let’s encourage strategy and tactics, where defending becomes very important (the points gets awarded over time, so the longer you defend, the more points you are awarded with), but also where you know that you have to choose if flipping a coin and try to gain points defending and using sieges (that don’t stomp…) OR travel the map hunting down enemies to gain more points being aware that if they are smarter/more skilled than you, you will give them more points than those you will be gaining from them.

I also liked very much the post about making NPC stronger and more numerous for servers that have a smaller WvW population.

DevonCarver.5370:

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

Sorry, but have I got this right?

In order to deal with a WvW problem you’re considering restricting non-PVPers’ freedom to play where they want?

Really? Yet more negative experience to PVEers to pander to PVP problems?

Kraggy.4169:

DevonCarver.5370:

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

Sorry, but have I got this right?

In order to deal with a WvW problem you’re considering restricting non-PVPers’ freedom to play where they want?

Really? Yet more negative experience to PVEers to pander to PVP problems?

You realize you have a guesting system and can play wherever you want?

Kraggy.4169:

Sorry, but have I got this right?

In order to deal with a WvW problem you’re considering restricting non-PVPers’ freedom to play where they want?

Really? Yet more negative experience to PVEers to pander to PVP problems?

Did he even say that?
He asked a question (which is most likely based around what most people in this thread seems to suggest). Not in any way or form did he say that they were planning on restricting PvE:ers (and lets be honest, the only real reason to transfer (expect between regions) is for WvW, since for everything else you can Guest.

Belenwyn.8674:

Variations in cost of server transfers will not solve the current imbalances in WvW population. It will also not touch the influx of new WvW players. They can still join the sever with the highest WvW population for free.

You have to encourage/corrupt new players to chose a low pop server. Maybe you could offer a WvW starter pack with boosts, blueprints, badges of honor and WXP. The lower the WvW population of a server is the better the starter pack is filled. If you accept the starter pack you are bound for six months to this server.

For existing players we would also need a kind of transfer box with nice perks in it to encourage people or even guilds (guild box?) to transfer. Maybe you could place special offers (boxes for guilds and players; maybe even gems) for transfers limited in time and numbers for each server and simultaneously introduce dynamic map caps.

Another black box for me is Edge of the Mists. I can’t rate the attractiveness at the moment. Many players stated in posts they would not care about server ranks and PPT. They would look for good fights. If the new map satisfies their needs they will simply leave the traditional WvW forever/for a bigger portion of time. I am not able the guess the numbers. If they are high it could literally kill server with low WvW population.

On the other hand Edge of the Mists removes the current queues. At least will not feel like a traditional queue more like WvW without PPT. A lower map cap on the traditional map would therefore much less painful.

Anet do not need to place carrots to get new players onto low pop servers, they just have to traffic manage the servers betterby locking out certain server locations to begin with. Many games deploy this, its actually the easiest way to balance out server caps. Also helps to avoid spreading the population out to thinly if there are too many servers.. a la SWTOR

DevonCarver.5370:

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

Price is not alone the issue. There should be an added incentive for destacking and a risk for bandwagoning on top of price.

I propose a model such as

1-3 – 2400 gems w/probation period
4-6 – 2100 gems
7-9 – 1800 gems
10-12 – 1500 gems
13-15 – 1200 gems w/300 gem rebate
16-18 – 900 gems w/600 gem rebate
19-21 – 600 gems w/900 gem rebate
22-24 – 300 gems w/1200 gem rebate

Rebates – to qualify for rebate you must:
—be transferring “down” at least 1 tier
—account must be at least 90 days old
—have not received any rebates in the past 90 days
If you meet these conditions, upon successful transfer you will receive your gem rebate to spend in the gem store or convert to gold, as you wish.

Probation – tier 1 only
—new transfers for tier 1 will receive a probation status for 30 days, which adds a 1 hour per-map playtime limit at which point you must re-enter the queue.
—duration probation period commander squad functionality is disabled.
—during probation period a player may “undo” the transfer if they are not happy with tier 1, in which case they will receive a 50% refund on their gems and be placed on their previous server.
—probation period does not apply if you are transferring from a tier 1 server to a different tier 1 server, only to those transferring ‘into’ tier 1.

Not going to read most of this thread, so forgive me if this has already been covered. Anet, have you found a way to fix the zoom hacks? It makes defense near impossible when you have somebody right outside of the inner wall of your keep, able to shoot arrows from an arrowcart directly into the lord’s room, hitting him, his NPC helpers, and any player that’s in it. And that’s without the gate or wall being taken down. It’s not fun, and is more frustrating than anything that you can’t get rid of the person there because of the zerg near them aiming at your position.

Server transfers aren’t going to solve the problem.

Players will never sort themselves into even teams. This is why most games don’t leave that up to the players. They have mechanics in place to make sure the teams are even; mechanics that were not implemented before the implementation of this league play.

You can’t back into it by giving the players a tool and telling them to sort it out themselves. Doesn’t work that way. If server transfers were gonna work, they would have worked by now, because they’ve been available and people have been using them. They haven’t worked. Focus on something else, like addressing WHY it is that numbers always win. Fix that.

Change the mechanics of zerg combat. Change the mechanics of tower/keep captures. Make numbers not as much of an advantage; don’t try to herd cats.

Solstice.1097:

DevonCarver.5370:

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

Price is not alone the issue. There should be an added incentive for destacking and a risk for bandwagoning on top of price.

I propose a model such as

1-3 – 2400 gems w/probation period
4-6 – 2100 gems
7-9 – 1800 gems
10-12 – 1500 gems
13-15 – 1200 gems w/300 gem rebate
16-18 – 900 gems w/600 gem rebate
19-21 – 600 gems w/900 gem rebate
22-24 – 300 gems w/1200 gem rebate

Rebates – to qualify for rebate you must:
—be transferring “down” at least 1 tier
—account must be at least 90 days old
—have not received any rebates in the past 90 days
If you meet these conditions, upon successful transfer you will receive your gem rebate to spend in the gem store or convert to gold, as you wish.

Probation – tier 1 only
—new transfers for tier 1 will receive a probation status for 30 days, which adds a 1 hour per-map playtime limit at which point you must re-enter the queue.
—duration probation period commander squad functionality is disabled.
—during probation period a player may “undo” the transfer if they are not happy with tier 1, in which case they will receive a 50% refund on their gems and be placed on their previous server.
—probation period does not apply if you are transferring from a tier 1 server to a different tier 1 server, only to those transferring ‘into’ tier 1.

I like this idea, except for the 1 hour time limit thing, that is a step too far.

The undo idea is pure brilliance, although it might encourage people to try t1 because at least they can get half the money back.

could make it 2 hours but the point is to make bandwagoning risky while still allowing serious transfers to occur. also reducing the inconvenience veteran players on the server face when being in queue behind new transfers.

I don’t think server transfers will fix much. I’d rather see something along the lines of “greatly outnumbered” where ANet commits the cardinal sin of giving +10% stats to those who have greatly less numbers on the map, or even across all maps. Along with higher bonuses. I just feel bad for Anvil Rock in our matchup; they can hardly capture anything without being run over in the war between us and HoD. I imagine their players feel helpless and would like some artificial help.

DevonCarver.5370:

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

I really don’t like where this is headed. Transfer gating is a preventative fix. It may help in the future, but it isn’t going to help world population right now.

This makes it look like the low-end population servers simply get penalized for sticking with their servers. Seriously, you are thinking about locking me onto a server that barely has the population to even play WvW (let alone win)? If you announce this change, I am reasonably certain there will be a mass exodus off low pop servers. I’m not getting locked onto Anvil Rock unless something is in the pipes that will actually help our population. There are others in my guild who are on the fence about transferring. A transfer gate it a great way to get us all to leave before we’re locked without a fix.

Why would someone move from high pop to low pop? There is no incentive beyond getting rid of a queue while also staying competitive. This is elementary cost/benefit analysis. Sure, it may be free to go to Anvil Rock, but what is the benefit? If people were willing to pay to transfer and still deal with queues, why would they suddenly be willing to drop to the bottom tier?

I’ve seen a post suggesting incentivizing the transfer itself. That is a terrible idea. All that will promote is server hopping to perpetually get rewards. Transferring is only a concern because of the current WvW design. WvW rewards server imbalance instead of penalizing it. Fix the root cause, not the action taken because of the root cause.

Deli.1302:

Changing transfer costs will NOT change anything.

I agree- in fact this is so out of touch as a solution, I’m forced to believe one of 2 things, either staff in alt names are discussing this to see how we’d react or they are pve’rs.