Guild Wars 2

ArenaNet please please please don’t tell me the state of mega servers is “final” … please make some changes… this is terrible. What must we do to convince you that changes are needed to the current system you have in place?

I’m waiting to see if the next patch changes the way Megaservers/Boss events/Home servers operate in this game. There has been a lot of interesting and helpful suggestions in the feedback threads and very little word on how/if any of it will be implemented in game. Pretty poor community relations.

Nope. Still not addressed.
I finally believe they feel the system is perfect and will be keeping it.

Thanks to megaservers, I can’t talk anyone. Thank you Anet to put me into german/spanish/french megash..ervers.

Hat’s off to you, A-net. You guys are awesomeness incarnated!

Now i’m convinced that you’re ignoring us completely. I got to admit, though… You guys are really clever in stealing people’s money and then dump them into a pile. Why do you keep these forums open, i wonder? If you simply ignore everything and everyone, and only post in silly threads, then make an “ArenaNet party forum”. I bet that way everyone will be happy, and if someone dares to address an issue, you’ll simply delete the post and keep up your godkitten utopia. Who decided about megaservers in the first place? Drunkus McBraindamaged?

Now i can’t play, i can’t chat as i usually end up in a non english <@#$!?> instance, i can’t RP, and i can’t do anything as both my guilds have vanished into thin air thanks to your freakin’ Skynet wannabe…. , and please do NOT give me the excuse of “shucks, find another guild”, as it starts to be wearing thin. What exactly is your megafail doing? Tracing someone’s IP address and places him accordingly? And if that’s the case, WHY i end up in non English speaking instances? I ain’t living in Germany, France, nor Spain!

All i catch myself doing lately, is roaming solo around Queensdale, doing dynamic events and gathering, avoiding big crowds, and keeping zone chat off. And speaking of that, i dare you, my dear ArenaNet to log in and play on a normal day. If you can stand the the racism and idiocy that’s been posted there since you downgraded our game, then reply to me, and call me an idiot. RP is out of the question as well, as we well mention the situation in another thread in which you keep ignoring.

And yet you release another major patch, and still no megaserver fixes……….

No wait… I’m really sorry ArenaNet, i didn’t realize it earlier… I’m totally ignorant when it comes to how a game works, as i’m only involved in gaming since the 1980’s… You’re waiting for February the 30th! It falls on Tuesday next year, and I bet that day you will announce the fixes we’re all been craving for, and we’ll see a grand patch for megaserver only!

Hang in there folks, just 7 more months to go, they’re still collecting data!

The lack of communication is infuriating! They expect us to just keep holding out, waiting for changes to be made. Funny thing is that is exactly what we’re doing. Before we know it a year will go by and we’ll be wondering why we let them shaft us.

Azhure.1857:

The lack of communication is infuriating! They expect us to just keep holding out, waiting for changes to be made. Funny thing is that is what we’re doing isn’kitten Before we know it a year will go by and we’ll be wondering why we let them shaft us.

Eventually, all players that respect themselves and their wallet, will stop their support until a fix is implemented. Lack of funds raises up an alarm, and it’ll be either addressed accordingly, or shut down in areas that are causing damage. A.K.A. US/EU.

They don’t need us now, they have China.

Well, I’m still waiting for at least a few of the destroyed events to get fixed and scale properly. Fat chance, I know, but here’s hoping…

OP is clearly a second account of an Anet employee.

The megaserver is possibly a worse idea than LS Season 1. And that’s saying something.

Well it has been almost a month since we got told there is a dedicated staff that is working on fixing the megaserver. How much longer are we going to have to wait before we see those fixes. You guys have come out with a new living story system but you cant fix what is already broken. You said at first that you were busy with the launch in China but that is long over there really is no excuse for not having at least 1 fix in to the megaserver by now. Guild missions have lost all their challenge and fun due to overcrowding on the maps. We still get scattered to different shards of the megaserver and have to spend time giving guildmates a taxi in instead of looking for the bounty. Our guild has still been unable to do a single temple run since the megaserver launched everytime we try we enter a shard where it is already cleared, and we used to do them 3 times a week. I am getting so bored with this game and i never had that problem before the megaserver. We need fixes real soon. Light a fire under that dedicated teams butts already.

Anet broke the game and they don’t care
I dont play anymore but while my other game is loading I look here

The fact that this thread dropped to page 6 and was not stickied like the other feedback posts, should tell you everything.

“Shut up or put up”

This is their stance, what are you going to do?

I play another game.

so long and thanks for all the fish

I stopped playing GW2 since megaservers ruined the game, but I keep popping back here with the hope of some good news but I see we’re still being ignored!

megaserver is good, but reduce the max cap by about quarter to half please. it’s a lagfest now

Zackie.8923:

megaserver is good, but reduce the max cap by about quarter to half please. it’s a lagfest now

Baaaaaaaad idea , it will become ever harder to join friends on a "capped"Server..

Last night a guildy actually got dropped into the correct instance of Sparkfly after joining my party, and zoning in. It is the first time I’ve ever seen the Mega Server system do what it is supposed to do. Although it may have been by accident.

Xaal.7235:

I stopped playing GW2 since megaservers ruined the game, but I keep popping back here with the hope of some good news but I see we’re still being ignored!

Same here.

I quit playing due to the mess the Megaservers created but I keep popping back in to see if any improvements have been made.

For me, Megaservers:

1- Ruined guild events. Near impossible to get into the same shard as the rest of the guild and guild missions like rushes are clogged with other guilds waiting to do them.

2- Caused severe performance issues. So much lag. Worse than a T1 WvW three way battle.

3- World boss trains were killed. The timers became all messed up and the events were way too overpopulated. It became hard to even get ‘credit’ for participating in events.

4- Too many strange faces on maps. The maps became cluttered with TOO many people for my liking, and their faces were unfamiliar. No longer had that feeling of a community when I did run into others.

5- Temple runs were ruined. Pretty much the same reasons as the world boss train.

I’d still like to know. Why do we have a guild cap of 500 if we cant fit more than 125 into one map? Mega Servers are very kitten Mega Guilds.

Mad Rasputin.7809:

1- Ruined guild events. Near impossible to get into the same shard as the rest of the guild and guild missions like rushes are clogged with other guilds waiting to do them.

2- Caused severe performance issues. So much lag. Worse than a T1 WvW three way battle.

3- World boss trains were killed. The timers became all messed up and the events were way too overpopulated. It became hard to even get ‘credit’ for participating in events.

4- Too many strange faces on maps. The maps became cluttered with TOO many people for my liking, and their faces were unfamiliar. No longer had that feeling of a community when I did run into others.

5- Temple runs were ruined. Pretty much the same reasons as the world boss train.

I kept playing and I worked out solutions to avoid most of the problems you present :

1- Nothing to say here : usually you cannot avoid a queue. If the guild is large enough, you can set up a collective jump to force the megaserver to create a new shard.

2- These issues were already here in the first place : an overcrowded tequatl even before megaserver caused massive framerate drop. This isn’t because of megaserver, it’s because of abundance of players in the same place. You don’t want to do the megaboss with too many people ? Wait a bit after the train moved to a new location then jump. You’ll end up in a partially filled shard and will be able to play normally.

3- This is a giant fallacy, everything is now streamlined thanks to the universal timer : no need for an API. More on this at #5. The hundreds of people that do world boss train everyday are the counter-argument.

4- Very true. Now I can end up playing with people from sfr instead of augury rock at certain times. I do not care personnaly, I just consider this as an opportunity to make new friends.

5- You cannot do temples while you boss train. The way to do temple has now changed. Nowadays I complete temples while I do a T6 spot farm with my characters. This is how I unlocked traits #13 on most of my toons. Sure it’s different from how I did temples before, but it works.

Without a schedule players could select which boss they want to do. So you could divide the zerg between bosses. Also, you could do pretty much all world bosses in 2 hours without a problem.

With megaservers, they brought schedules and dynamic events have become dynamic jobs. Because you can kill same bosses in same order in everyday if your online time is same, due to work/school/real life. Moreover, since there can be only one boss available in a given time frame, all players teleport to same map at that time frame which creates overpopulation, performance issues and lags.

Xaal.7235:

I stopped playing GW2 since megaservers ruined the game, but I keep popping back here with the hope of some good news but I see we’re still being ignored!

Likewise… been months. I think Asacledhae sums it up

Asacledhae.2650:

They don’t need us now, they have China.

Out of a dozen or so friends/co-workers etc, I don’t know of any who still play (not talking active guild number that dwindled to 0 active)… but most of them were big spenders and bought anything that was put into the store… so I can only assume china is spending big bucks and they aren’t missing our cash so they have no interest in addressing the issues here

Oogabooga.9138:

Elagos.6029:

Xaal.7235:

I stopped playing GW2 since megaservers ruined the game, but I keep popping back here with the hope of some good news but I see we’re still being ignored!

Likewise… been months. I think Asacledhae sums it up

Asacledhae.2650:

They don’t need us now, they have China.

Out of a dozen or so friends/co-workers etc, I don’t know of any who still play (not talking active guild number that dwindled to 0 active)… but most of them were big spenders and bought anything that was put into the store… so I can only assume china is spending big bucks and they aren’t missing our cash so they have no interest in addressing the issues here

I think you hit the nail on the head there. Maybe the one statement we received: " We are busy with China", was meant to be a condescending statement?

It’s certainly a realistic one. Game launch times are tough on companies always. You can’t double your staff to launch a game, so the staff gets spread more thinly.

I don’t see that as condescending. I see that as an explanation of reality. Devs have limited time and the new launch must take precedence. It’s like when I ran a computer store and a school ordered 40 computers. It’s not that I didn’t care about the rest of my customers. But I had to build those 40 computers in the alloted time. Other projects got pushed back.

Oogabooga.9138:

Vayne.8563:

Oogabooga.9138:

Elagos.6029:

Xaal.7235:

I stopped playing GW2 since megaservers ruined the game, but I keep popping back here with the hope of some good news but I see we’re still being ignored!

Likewise… been months. I think Asacledhae sums it up

Asacledhae.2650:

They don’t need us now, they have China.

Out of a dozen or so friends/co-workers etc, I don’t know of any who still play (not talking active guild number that dwindled to 0 active)… but most of them were big spenders and bought anything that was put into the store… so I can only assume china is spending big bucks and they aren’t missing our cash so they have no interest in addressing the issues here

I think you hit the nail on the head there. Maybe the one statement we received: " We are busy with China", was meant to be a condescending statement?

It’s certainly a realistic one. Game launch times are tough on companies always. You can’t double your staff to launch a game, so the staff gets spread more thinly.

I don’t see that as condescending. I see that as an explanation of reality. Devs have limited time and the new launch must take precedence. It’s like when I ran a computer store and a school ordered 40 computers. It’s not that I didn’t care about the rest of my customers. But I had to build those 40 computers in the alloted time. Other projects got pushed back.

I thoroughly understand placing precedence on priority projects. I’m frustrated like many other players that they stopped communication with us after asking for our feedback on changes. They advertise on other sites that they communicate with us or maybe that was a play on words and meant to be that they listen to us? Who knows, as nothing is ever said and by looking at the updates they just do….not sure what they are doing actually, lol.

I’m just completely in awe that they get away with not responding to at least the Trait or Megaserver posts that could fill a book. These people have valid concerns and recommendations. When there is no response regarding said posts that many people put much time and thought into, then it can cause backlash. This is common sense stuff here. I own a customer service oriented construction business and yep I deal with new people every single day. If I treated any of my customers this way, I’d have never even gotten off the ground 20 years ago, much less retain any clients or get the best jobs, which tend to be referrals. Word of mouth can make or break a business. kitten off one customer and they will tell 10 others, make one happy and they may tell one other.

Saying they are busy is a lazy excuse to avoid any backlash that is inevitable after ignoring player issues for this long. People are upset and rightly so.

You’re simplifying this. The people kittenpond to most forum posts aren’t devs. And devs wouldn’t have the time to respond to most forum posts.

Let’s say there are so many suggestions as you say, and there are. So a dev can respond to five, maybe ten. And then fifty people feel disenfranchised. The devs didn’t respond to them.

All they need do it read them, not respond. Responding to each, getting into a conversation about each, it’s a huge amount of time they’re taking their head out of coding.

And if you’ve never coded before, once you get started, you can’t take your head out of it and put it back in. You can get lost in lines of code for hours upon hours. It’s just not that simple.

I don’t think it’s realistic to expect responses until responses are parsed through a system of meetings and such. No one person has the authority112c11 to look at an idea and say yes, good idea, we’ll do that. Why should they? Half the stuff suggested would probably have unseen consequences players never think about.

Until the idea is tested by a bunch of people thinking about it, trying to poke holes in it, a dev can’t reply. Should they have those meetings hourly? Daily? Weekly? Weekly is far too long with the number of suggestions.

I think it’s unreasonable to expect replies to long long threads like that.

I can understand the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few, but I still don’t like the cost of it. I’m not much of an RPer but I generally share the same concern.

When it comes to what I’d want from an “ideal MMO”, a huge amount of players wasn’t on there. I’m much more of a solo player not just because of the freedom I have, but also because I find myself more immersed into the game world. For the most part, I used to have a choice regarding how populated my gameworld was and I’m upset I lost that.

Vayne.8563:

Why should they? Half the stuff suggested would probably have unseen consequences players never think about.

Yeah because megaservers are THE BEST SYSTEM EVER and there are none consequences that anyone could think about.

But do you know, Vayne? Before they implemented megaservers, we wrote wall of concerns about this system. And your beloved company’s workers said us “We will take care of them”. Yeah, they really take care of them by ignoring.

Vayne.8563:

Until the idea is tested by a bunch of people thinking about it, trying to poke holes in it, a dev can’t reply. Should they have those meetings hourly? Daily? Weekly? Weekly is far too long with the number of suggestions.

3 months + 2 weeks past since they wrote a blog about megaservers and implemented into the game. Do you want us to wait for 9324802984029 years more?

Also, I don’t know since when you are playing GW2, but I am here since day -3. Anet does not test their systems. Because we are still in beta.

(Actually, according to the information taken from ArenaNet page in glassdoor.com, they closed their own QA team and outsourced it to another company which is probably the worst decision they could ever think about [after megaservers of course =)]).

Vayne.8563:

I think it’s unreasonable to expect replies to long long threads like that.

Usual white knighting detected in small scale. You are right if they do something to fix megaservers without coming to this topic and chat with us. But they haven’t done anything in game too. By looking their behaviours, they won’t do anything.

Phoenixlin.8624:

Vayne.8563:

Why should they? Half the stuff suggested would probably have unseen consequences players never think about.

Yeah because megaservers are THE BEST SYSTEM EVER and there are none consequences that anyone could think about.

But do you know, Vayne? Before they implemented megaservers, we wrote wall of concerns about this system. And your beloved company’s workers said us “We will take care of them”. Yeah, they really take care of them by ignoring.

Vayne.8563:

Until the idea is tested by a bunch of people thinking about it, trying to poke holes in it, a dev can’t reply. Should they have those meetings hourly? Daily? Weekly? Weekly is far too long with the number of suggestions.

3 months + 2 weeks past since they wrote a blog about megaservers and implemented into the game. Do you want us to wait for 9324802984029 years more?

Also, I don’t know since when you are playing GW2, but I am here since day -3. Anet does not test their systems. Because we are still in beta.

(Actually, according to the information taken from ArenaNet page in glassdoor.com, they closed their own QA team and outsourced it to another company which is probably the worst decision they could ever think about [after megaservers of course =)]).

Vayne.8563:

I think it’s unreasonable to expect replies to long long threads like that.

Usual white knighting detected in small scale. You are right if they do something to fix megaservers without coming to this topic and chat with us. But they haven’t done anything in game too. By looking their behaviours, they won’t do anything.

They’ve said they’re working to fine tune the mega servers. They said it’s only the beginning and they’ll continue to monitor and adjust. What exactly what you want them to add to that.

You might be right if they hadn’t said it. Also drop the white knight business. Trying to paint everything I say with one brush just because I disagree with you isn’t really helping your argument any.

Ive given this megaserver a while, world bosses are a total zergfest with no hope of ever failing, where it is pretty nice when exploring to bump into someone doing the hearts with you.

The map sizes are too big for the world bosses when most of that map is stacked up in one spot, ive even turned down everything when i decide to do these events and still theres more lights than a harrods christmas tree.

I miss going to home cities and seeing and talking with people from my server, I dont want to see guild recruit messages that do not relate to where I am. I remember a time when you became outmanned in WvW you could go to LA and ask for back up, now try it. Does it really matter if your on a less populated server and your home city is empty, then you can use you guesting rights.. there are no mobs, no bosses. Coming from TC id prob like Divinity to be the home instance.. but LA would prob be the better choice

Let us have our community back please, we aren’t asking for all of Tyria just one small place to call home.

I was amazed at the number of players in low level zones when I started playing GW2 again. I love it! The previous time I played couldn’t I do most events because I was alone now do many players join them.

This gives new player the impression of a thriving and successful game.

To please new players, alienate old ones. It seems a good idea to me.

Kolpo.2713:

I was amazed at the number of players in low level zones when I started playing GW2 again. I love it! The previous time I played couldn’t I do most events because I was alone now do many players join them.

This gives new player the impression of a thriving and successful game.

I think this is the general idea of megaserver, and what anet was aiming for.

But, give it a few months and then try to figure out anything about your ‘home server’ community, or try dealing with guild events, or try finding any fun in the ‘end game’ world boss events and you will start to understand what all the megaserver hate is about.

Vayne.8563:

They’ve said they’re working to fine tune the mega servers. They said it’s only the beginning and they’ll continue to monitor and adjust. What exactly what you want them to add to that.

It’s been said before, but they need to explicitly identify the issues that they’re “tuning” because they haven’t made it clear at all whether any of our concerns are things they want to consider. Tuning the current system as it is isn’t going to satisfy most of the people that have posted to these threads because the system itself wasn’t designed to satisfy the needs that were brought up during the announcement. What we NEED is some clarity. When people are complaining about “devs not responding” or “devs offering generic ’we’re working on it’ responses”, what they’re referring to is this lack of information. We need to know whether or not the system is being tuned to address our issues, or if they’ll never be addressed at all. After all, the whole contested waypoint thing was described as an unfortunate side effect of the new system and was determined to be an acceptable loss by ArenaNet. There’s nothing telling us that our concerns aren’t going to be treated in the same way.

VoiceOfUnreason.5976:

Vayne.8563:

They’ve said they’re working to fine tune the mega servers. They said it’s only the beginning and they’ll continue to monitor and adjust. What exactly what you want them to add to that.

It’s been said before, but they need to explicitly identify the issues that they’re “tuning” because they haven’t made it clear at all whether any of our concerns are things they want to consider. Tuning the current system as it is isn’t going to satisfy most of the people that have posted to these threads because the system itself wasn’t designed to satisfy the needs that were brought up during the announcement. What we NEED is some clarity. When people are complaining about “devs not responding” or “devs offering generic ’we’re working on it’ responses”, what they’re referring to is this lack of information. We need to know whether or not the system is being tuned to address our issues, or if they’ll never be addressed at all. After all, the whole contested waypoint thing was described as an unfortunate side effect of the new system and was determined to be an acceptable loss by ArenaNet. There’s nothing telling us that our concerns aren’t going to be treated in the same way.

I’m not sure what you want them to say. First you identify problems, then you try to find solutions to problems. They you try to implement the solutions. There’s nothing to say until they actually figure out the best way to go forward from this point. It doesn’t take a day or two. It takes time.

There isn’t a solution. I don’t know how they thought building a game mode that pits servers against each other and then lumping them together would be a good idea, even remotely. If the big concern was the early game population, then lump those maps together. It’s now a giant wound they are trying to cover with a band-aid.

Our participation within our server community is so low, that in fact, we’ve been bleeding players, even with the release of new content. It’s such a drastic change, so impacting and widespread, that they are actually losing players because of it. I’m sorry but that’s simply unacceptable to remain hush-hush about any intent or direction to fix things are, this should be the utmost priority. And in all seriousness, i don’t think people would be fully satisfied unless the system went back to how it was before.

Right now i think it’s really justified to feel like second class citizens, because, well, China.

Vayne.8563:

I’m not sure what you want them to say. First you identify problems, then you try to find solutions to problems. They you try to implement the solutions. There’s nothing to say until they actually figure out the best way to go forward from this point. It doesn’t take a day or two. It takes time.

I know what I want them to say.

For all we know they may not see the problems that are being described in this thread as issues that need fixing. I want them to acknowledge the issues as they see them.

Tweaking / refining the algorithm is fine, dandy and definitely needed but the problems with the megaserver, (from the point of view of some of the posters in this thread) go well beyond a better matching algorithm.

I want some acknowledgement that the good things the megaserver brought came at a cost, it isn’t all sunshine and roses. Or some reasoning that the good things the megaserver brought are worth the sacrifices made and that the problems being brought to light in this thread either are directly being worked on or that they aren’t really issues from their point of view.

I want to know that just about 3 months of feedback isn’t being ignored. Because that is the perception that silence gives. Ignore it, they’ll get used to it kind of mentality.

A generic we’re working on it could mean anything from algorithm refinement to hardware perfomance. They may not be working on what the perceived problems are.
It is just to vague.

3 months latter, still a crap system, especially in the trying to do organized content. Anet needs to stop promoting the spvp which will NEVER become a esport and start fixing their pve side on the glaring issues of lack of end game. Sparkfly and Bloodtide still needs to be revered back to the old system to help control who enters a teq or worm attempt. Or they need to actually add a real raid mechanic, not the half kitten system will have now or allow guild to spawn their own instances that only they can access. And don’t put it behind a 20 merit gate.

Kolpo.2713:

This gives new player the impression of a thriving and successful game.

I really hope that Anet is not just trying to give, “the impression,” that the game is thriving.

Personally I find both positives and negatives in the Megaserver. Events that I could only rarely participate in previously due to an insufficiency of players are now readily doable.

But FX glare and lag are a pain and many of the events that are now doable are not necessarily all that enjoyable to do without even the basic ability to see what is going on.

Combine that with mobs that are instantly vaporized by the zerg and there is little sense of contribution or actual participation.

Xar.6185:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not sure what you want them to say. First you identify problems, then you try to find solutions to problems. They you try to implement the solutions. There’s nothing to say until they actually figure out the best way to go forward from this point. It doesn’t take a day or two. It takes time.

I know what I want them to say.

For all we know they may not see the problems that are being described in this thread as issues that need fixing. I want them to acknowledge the issues as they see them.

Tweaking / refining the algorithm is fine, dandy and definitely needed but the problems with the megaserver, (from the point of view of some of the posters in this thread) go well beyond a better matching algorithm.

I want some acknowledgement that the good things the megaserver brought came at a cost, it isn’t all sunshine and roses. Or some reasoning that the good things the megaserver brought are worth the sacrifices made and that the problems being brought to light in this thread either are directly being worked on or that they aren’t really issues from their point of view.

I want to know that just about 3 months of feedback isn’t being ignored. Because that is the perception that silence gives. Ignore it, they’ll get used to it kind of mentality.

A generic we’re working on it could mean anything from algorithm refinement to hardware perfomance. They may not be working on what the perceived problems are.
It is just to vague.

This, pretty much.

It’s a much more toxic environment now. Work, time and money we’ve put into things to enhance our server communities are all in vain and this doesn’t even speak to the time an effort of the API developers. There is just so much that got tossed out the window with the intro of the megaserver and set world event schedule. The only thing i can think of is that their hands are tied and this is what we are all stuck with going forward. I’d really rather not believe they simply don’t care, or are too busy to address this glaring problem directly with us.

I could post a conversation one of our Radio DJ’s had with an anet employee that basically stated it’s not the best thing they could have done. So i’m really unsure where i personally go from here, i really don’t plan on playing as much as i did and i’m certainly not going to spend money in the gemstore on giveaways anymore. I actually don’t even know if it’s worth running a server community site at this point. It’s pretty sad to have to come to these realizations.

Megaservers are extremely confusing, the algorithm is obviously broken, and the whole system is seriously damaging my gameplay experience as a whole.

Players require to be able to view and select on which instance of the map they play on.

Please, for the sake of keeping this game enjoyable, put this issue on highest priority.

I am glad to see this thread is still alive and without artificial bumps. The megaserver continues to gift us with problems, including broken instances for Wurm where players get messages that the instance is full when it isn’t anywhere close. Combined with the party bug, where player’s parties lock up and they can’t accept any more join requests, it makes getting to an event more challenging than the event itself. I used to do Teq every night, now it is not worth the hassle.

The other bosses, like jungle wurm, FE, Ulgoth and temples have become AFK auto-spams. You can’t even see the boss due to particle effects so you can’t dodge or otherwise react to their tells anyway. It’s become a snooze.

Megaservers are detrimental to community growth and development, from one to one interactions to world events.

1. The Megaserver algorithms are particularly ineffective at properly sorting players.
2. Megaservers facilitate the proliferation of vulgar and unwanted map chat
3. Megaservers make it nearly impossible to properly organize and recruit for events.

A couple months ago, we were told that the megaserver “algorithms” would eventually match us up with people we played with, and would develop to get better.

After being sent to a different megaserver Lion’s Arch while in the same party as a guildmate that I play with often, I decided to conduct a little experiment.

I usually hang out in the same place in Lion’s Arch when I’m just chatting. So my experiment was thus:

On average, when I log in or waypoint in, how many people do I recognize?

4 guilds that I recognized over 8 screenshots. (these are guilds that I have seen before, not necessarily people in the guilds that I recognize, nor duplicate people from these guilds.)

2 people that appeared in multiple screenshots (although, in this case, it was 2 screenshots each)

To be fair, it is a fairly small sample size. However, it does correlate with my experience in general. Every time I log in, or waypoint in, I’m surrounded by strangers. On the rare occasion that I do engage in chat or general tomfoolery with someone, I never see them again.

I can see two main causes for this.

1. Megaserver algorithms are NOT effective in sorting players, in fact, they appear particularly in-effective.
2. The triple-hub of new Lion’s Arch is not conducive to player interaction/community growth.

Counterarguments:

Q: Why not just party and swap over? Are you that lazy?
A: It’s not so much lazy as the idea that I should be able to expect to be in the same map as my guildmates, with whom I am on the same server, and often already in the same party. Not only guildmates, but friends who I have from the same server. Not only that, but they’re also often spread across multiple megaservers. It’s a huge hassle to just party people and swap maps just to say “Hi!”

Before Megaservers, just being able to jump your character around someone you knew, or mess around with emotes or costume brawl was a given. Now, things are just dead more often than not.

Q: Why not just add these people you meet as friends?
A: Because as awesome as people are, one nice conversation is hardly a “friendship”. Maybe if I would see them more than once ever, and had more casual conversations, things would be different. But as it is, there’s rarely any growth.

Megaservers facilitate inappropriate and unwanted map chat.

This is a big problem. I’m sure everyone now has at some point, gone into Lion’s Arch to be greeted by some vulgar discussion. This is a direct result of Megaservers. With a server, there’s an expectation to maintain a certain environment. Some servers preferred a more loose chat, while others wanted to maintain a friendly space. This no longer exists.

Q: Why not just close map chat? Block and report the vulgar people?
A: Because I do like chatting with people. I do enjoy helping people who post questions in map chat.
Block and report?
I do. Yet it doesn’t help much, since chances are, I’ll never be in the same map as these people again anyway.

Megaservers make it nearly impossible to properly organize and recruit for massive events.

Gone are the days of “Not enough people at Tequatl? Go to Lion’s Arch and recruit!” “Not enough people defending Stonemist? Go to Lion’s Arch and recruit!”.

It’s no longer feasible, since these people are not only inconsistent, but there is also no guarantee that they’ll end up in the same map should they decide to join in on the event.

World versus World recruitment is dead as well, since there are few people from the same server, or perhaps enemy servers in the same Megaserver.

The end result of this is that communities are no longer growing, or at least growing at a much much slower rate than before Megaservers. It’s harder to make friends, meet new people. People in maps seem more hostile. When you’re surrounded by strangers, you’re more alone than if you were by yourself.

We were told to wait and see when we voiced our concerns before, and during the Megaserver roll out.
We waited.

This is what I see.

Well, I do miss TC. The quality of /map chat has really gone down for me.

And the algorithm needs some work. It shouldn’t be ignoring people’s ban list, for instance.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Well, I do miss TC. The quality of /map chat has really gone down for me.

And the algorithm needs some work. It shouldn’t be ignoring people’s ban list, for instance.

Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if the algorithm will be nodded over and over, I mean, we could technically call the megaserver ATM ‘beta’.

If anything, they need to bring back districts for each area. I hate being in a dry top on tier 3, leave or crash, and come back to a sever on tier one. Its annoying.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Well, I do miss TC. The quality of /map chat has really gone down for me.

Yeah I moved to TC due to the quality of chat and the low level of trolls and people acting like children. Even when people showed up in TC and caused problems they were quickly ostracized. Now with mega server I get /map chat full of trolls and guild spam. Thanks mega server!

We knew all this was going to happen with megaservers. Just look at the megaserver “beta test” that was EoTM: no community there has made it into a spectacular failure of 24/7 karma train.

Don’t dream about “tweaks on algorithm can fix stuff” since the problem is not the algorithm but the domain it is used. I will try to explain it as simple as possible:

- ANet, obviously, collect data about us and our environment while we are playing. So, in an ideal world the collected data is enough for them to identify who should be in same map with whom.

- Moreover, the algorithm that matches you with your friends are not complex. Yeah there is some Big Data stuff included; however, the small scale version is just a basic machine learning algorithm that can match you with your possible friends/guildies (and there can be several different algorithmic approaches for such matching). Since Anet has enough data, these algorithms can achieve really high accuracies for matching (but not %100). So, in terms of algorithm, ANet has no problem (I hope). The problem starts when you enter a map.

- First thing can happen is the map that your friends/party/guildies are in may reach the soft/hard caps. If it is soft cap, you can just “join”; otherwise, you need to spam “join”. This can’t be fixed fully (increasing cap is just a temporary solution for instance). It is just a situational case and you have to accept it. Since there are many players in the map, and many social circles that players have; many players try to be in the same map with their friends.

- Secondly, you are not the only one who has the person X as your friend. Let’s think about a two-men party and you both wanna enter Sparkfly. The person X teleports to map before you, and while he is teleporting, the algorithm places him to the best matching map by looking his/her server/guild/party/friendlist. Then, you teleport and same process happens. If you are lucky enough, your matching score make you enter the person X’s map. However, if you have more friends or better matching friends in another Sparkfly instance, system separates you from person X. Again, you can do nothing about it. You can’t say system to “prioritize party in this case and prioritize guildies in another case and so on,” because there are infinitely many cases out there. There are infinitely many connections between lots of players and it is an impossible task to match every single player correctly.

- Thirdly, even if you are the perfect match of a person X (let’s assume you are both from same server, guild and in same party), the algorithm can’t achieve the %100 accuracy. You and the person X are the perfect friends just by looking; however, a computer algorithm does not work like that. It does it calculations and if it fails, you will be separated.

- Finally, I have no idea how this system can match me with Frenches and Germans. It is probably a default case in Europe server: “If you can’t find a proper map for player X, just throw him into Frenches and Germans. Make him suffer!”

To conclude, don’t expect any tweaks or optimizations in the algorithm/code. The problem is not the algorithm but the domain itself. There are too many possible cases to be handled and there is no algorithm to fix them all. Obviously, ANet did not think about Megaserver idea as they should be. Even with 30 minutes of self-brainstorming, I can tell you most of the possible cases that Megaservers fall short. I don’t believe that any staff at ANet hadn’t thought any of these issues; however, some higher-ups, that wanna bath with money, made them implement this system to create a crowded game illusion to attract new players.

Vayne.8563:

I’m not sure what you want them to say.

• What they view as issues.
• What they’re currently working on.
• Where they intend to go.

They need not defend themselves. Just make a statement. I’m not expecting them to answer everyone’s individual questions/concerns. But they’re currently doing nothing to alleviate concerns given.

Asmodeus.5782:

Hi! Do you realize that this topic is not on the official feedback threads list and is very likely to be completely ignored? ;D

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Feature-Patch-Feedback-Thread-list

Yep—just like every other concern voiced by players. Their way or the highway philosophy I guess. I’ll just stick with my wallet is closed interaction.

When I created my account, I specifically picked a server with a lower population because I just plain PREFER a less crowded world. I don’t do WvW, and less crowding = less lag on my less-than-stellar Internet connection.

Now I don’t have any choice. Even in towns, which have more reason to NOT be part of the MegaServer. I have had to turn off Player Names because it’s just too crowded to see the Bank NPCs behind all the text. And I rarely attend World Boss fights anymore due to excessive lag. Framerates get all choppy, and I freeze up sometimes to the point of getting disconnected.

How about adding a Micro Server for those of us who don’t care to live in New York, and would rather move out to a farm in Hooterville?

Vayne.8563:

You’re simplifying this. The people kittenpond to most forum posts aren’t devs. And devs wouldn’t have the time to respond to most forum posts.

Let’s say there are so many suggestions as you say, and there are. So a dev can respond to five, maybe ten. And then fifty people feel disenfranchised. The devs didn’t respond to them.

All they need do it read them, not respond. Responding to each, getting into a conversation about each, it’s a huge amount of time they’re taking their head out of coding.

And if you’ve never coded before, once you get started, you can’t take your head out of it and put it back in. You can get lost in lines of code for hours upon hours. It’s just not that simple.

I don’t think it’s realistic to expect responses until responses are parsed through a system of meetings and such. No one person has the authority112c11 to look at an idea and say yes, good idea, we’ll do that. Why should they? Half the stuff suggested would probably have unseen consequences players never think about.

Until the idea is tested by a bunch of people thinking about it, trying to poke holes in it, a dev can’t reply. Should they have those meetings hourly? Daily? Weekly? Weekly is far too long with the number of suggestions.

I think it’s unreasonable to expect replies to long long threads like that.

when you are skilled at coding, aka its your job, jumping in and out of code is pretty easy, the main problem is when its someone elses code.

Anyhow the problem is, i think they need feedback before moving on a final implementation, i wouldnt be saying that if the initial implementations were smooth, but both megaservers and traits, big changes that a decent amount of people realized the flaws as soon as the basic details were released. If they dont have people who can see something ahead of time, until its implemented, then perhaps they need to have more targeted feedback to projects they are actually working on, so we dont end up having to wait like 6 months for whatever new features problems to be solved when its up for review.

eh well, i also dont really play anymore, its their game, ball is in their court, hopefully things get better.

Phoenixlin.8624:

Don’t dream about “tweaks on algorithm can fix stuff” since the problem is not the algorithm but the domain it is used. I will try to explain it as simple as possible:

To conclude, don’t expect any tweaks or optimizations in the algorithm/code. The problem is not the algorithm but the domain itself. There are too many possible cases to be handled and there is no algorithm to fix them all. Obviously, ANet did not think about Megaserver idea as they should be. Even with 30 minutes of self-brainstorming, I can tell you most of the possible cases that Megaservers fall short. I don’t believe that any staff at ANet hadn’t thought any of these issues; however, some higher-ups, that wanna bath with money, made them implement this system to create a crowded game illusion to attract new players.

As far as i can tell, the algorithm will never work that well, as you describe, its not simply a case of matching the right people, soft caps come into play, hard caps come in to play.

What about a guy who has guildies on 5 different instances, what about the dude who has 25 server mates on one and 25 on the other.

As long as the system cannot reshuffle players to be together, i dont see how the system will actually work most of the time.
There are going to be many times, when all of the “best matches” are bad, or you are simply not going to be allowed on the best map match.

Azhure.1857:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not sure what you want them to say.

• What they view as issues.
• What they’re currently working on.
• Where they intend to go.

They need not defend themselves. Just make a statement. I’m not expecting them to answer everyone’s individual questions/concerns. But they’re currently doing nothing to alleviate concerns given.

It’s still the same as what I said. They may not have yet decided what to do. It really is that simple.

There are 300 people working or Anet. It may simply be that they don’t know yet, because they’re tossing the ideas around. For one thing, they might not all agree. They might be arguing. We don’t know and they’re certainly not going to tell us that.

This is a big game. It has a lot going on. The mega server is one part of it, but there’s still other stuff. So it goes in a queue like everything else. Game development really is a slow business.

Anet made a decision, rightly or wrongly, that this would be better for the game, even with the problems. I’m still convinced people who value server community are a minority, perhaps a vast minority. Anet is much more concerned with new people coming in during sales, playing for two days, seeing no one in zones and leaving. People play MMOs to see other people…at least many do. That problem had to be solved, or there might not eventually be a game. That’s my theory on why it was done as quickly as it was done.

Then the complaints start. Some like the RPers, represent another minority. All the concerns here are legitimate. It’s not that they’re not. But Anet may look at the percentage of people that RP and they might think…well, I’m sorry they’re hurt, but we had to do this. But again, what do they say. They can’t say we hear you and we’re working on your concerns if they’re not. They’re also not going to say we’re not, because there’s no way to phrase it that doesn’t make them sound like they don’t care. They may care and still not be able to do much about it. Keep in mind this is still all during the China launch, the living story season 1 launch, other stuff is going on.

And let’s say they did decide what to do. Maybe it will work maybe it won’t. If they say something and find it doesn’t work when they test it, now they’re lying to us. Any time they say anything that doesn’t come to pass people call them liars.

It’s entirely possible that things are being discussed and attempted that they can’t talk about for any or all of the reasons above, or even other reasons I don’t know about.

People who assume a two month silence is a long time in development, mostly likely haven’t been in development.

And I still think there are a ton of people who really love the megaserver. I think this is the best change they’ve made to the game since launch.