Guild Wars 2

Hi. I am from the low population of Devona’s Rest. I am a guild leader of now over 200 people in the past month. Although that seems like a lot, it’s one of the largest guilds on our server. Although guild size doesn’t determine the server size, guest to Devona’s Rest and stand in LA and that will tell you how barren our maps really are. Now I started our guild because after WvW season 1 ended in a not surprising slaughter, many of our larger guilds left for greener pastures. Sadly this was one of my guilds. To tell you a little about me, I was also in another large server that transferred to a higher population server when transfers were free. I then decided the guild wasn’t going in the direction I wanted, came back to Devona’s Rest for $20 in gems. Enough about my history, but let’s look at the present. Some could ask why I would even create a guild here in the first place and why stay here. After recruiting I learned a few things and it’s been difficult.
Most new players buy this game picking a server they just literally random pick. There is obviously a few who have friends on servers, ect but the average person randomly picks a server. What seems to happen is they become more experienced but then become frustrated with the lack of low population. They do a few things. 1) Transfer 2) Deal with it and guest 3) Quit. Now for PvE content guesting is a great option. However those who play WvW are forced to transfer. This in itself is an obvious problem because this game should not be designed that you must guest or transfer to enjoy game content. Now I just got done running the new marionette mission. Our server had less than 30 on the map and the event failed after lane 2. Imagine, 3 people per lane trying to play. What is the other option? Guest? I did. Instant overflow. Which leads me to this: What about people on those servers? They are getting screwed due to guesters. They might not even get to participate in this event because guesting from low pop servers. This is a huge problem!
Now there is a dozen ways I could list why lower population servers is horrible but I am afraid at this point, Anet just quite frankly doesn’t give a kitten . It’s no secret that Anet is a business and thinks financially. Gems are their main source of income and transferring servers I am sure is a huge source of that income. But at what cost? You have players quitting because the troubles with low population issues. You have existing players very frustrated. You literally have WvW guilds buying our other guilds from other servers to ensure they win WvW (yes… this DOES happen.) So at what point is money more important than the experience for your players. This isn’t just a small quality of life issue, this is a SERIOUS problem. Now it’s not that I can’t afford to transfer but the point is, I shouldn’t HAVE to transfer to really enjoy this game. Our server on it’s own has NEVER defeated Teq. We haven’t defeated the new Marionette and many of our world bosses don’t ever get touched outside of reset. Temples do not get done everyday. Hell, we barely even have farming trains at times, which blows my mind. These are all things that directly effect players and their quality of game play.
So what are somethings that could make gameplay better for everyone?
1) Advertise server populations as they are. Right now every server is listed as High (with BG being full). I think we all know Devona’s Rest and other servers like TC, SoR, JQ are not the same population.
2) Make true low population servers free to transfer to and the higher population servers more expensive. This could offset some cost and completely rebalance server populations
3) Automatically put guesters into overflow if map is full. This will give that server priority rights over events.
4) Underflow servers. Server is full? Send them to a different low population server without using up a guest slot.
5) Make new bosses instanced. Example: Instead of Teq being on your map, he is on an instance that people from different servers get sent to. This is like overflow but every server automatically comes here instead vs jsut being on the map of that server.
Now I am sure there are a lot of ways arena net can fix this issue but something needs to be done. I know several people who have just flat out quit because of this and I don’t feel that monetary greed should be a priority to needs of players. I think there might be a way that Anet can fix this problem and still financially grow as a company.
What are your thoughts and ideas? Perhaps if we gain some attention, ANet will take some action.

You know this is a repeated suggestion. Each and every one of your points, has already been suggested.

Anet knows its an issue, if they want to do something about it, they will.

The population levels are not based on currently playing players. It is whomever has that server chosen as their home server. Even if they only played on release day and decided that the game was not for them.

What ANet should do is analyze what percentage of players from each home server are active. Then make the bottom X% free to transfer to and the top X % more expensive to transfer to.

But since most players want onto the servers with high populations, it will likely not be assuccessful in spreading out the population.

They won’t show real % on servers ever. Might shock ppl they should merge servers, havning so many at launch is one thing but I doubt all 3mil still play.

The Gate of Madness server has been dead for a long time. It literally died 4 months after GW2 was released, and the population never got better. I stayed and put up with the server for another 3 months before I finally transferred to a bigger, better server, and then quit the game shortly after.

Here’s the best solution ever: Merge. the. freaking. servers.

My entire guild begged for server merges. Heck, the entire server was begging for server merges. GoM’s WvW was suffering so badly that people didn’t even participate anymore. Nowadays, it looks like GoM is doing better in WvW, but I can’t even fathom what the people in Devona’s Rest are feeling right now. They’ve been at the bottom of WvW since the beginning.

Just merge the servers. That’s the only solution at this point.

Taygus.4571:

You know this is a repeated suggestion. Each and every one of your points, has already been suggested.

Anet knows its an issue, if they want to do something about it, they will.

Nope. Anet does not think it’s an issue. In fact, they seem utterly blind to it.

Here is a quote from Johanson with the source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-14-you-thought-that-was-it-for-guild-wars-2

Concern: I hate being on an underpopulated/rubbish server! We were rubbish in the world-versus-world league.

“Population-wise, we’re doing great,” insisted Johanson. “We’re very happy with where we’re at. Six months ago to now, it’s a very steady, very very healthy population.”

I think the servers should have their own content difficulty now that a lot of servers have been decimated by transfers.
Big servers have harder content
Small servers need some dispensation, eg longer timers / lower diffulty.
Separate pve & wvw populations because they DO NOT translate to each other.
Since Boss week some of the servers have suffered horribly with not one ounce of love from Anet.
ITS TIME TO REROLL/MERGE SERVERS OR MAKE CONTENT DIFFICULTY SERVER SPECIFIC!!!

Galtrix.7369:

Taygus.4571:

You know this is a repeated suggestion. Each and every one of your points, has already been suggested.

Anet knows its an issue, if they want to do something about it, they will.

Nope. Anet does not think it’s an issue. In fact, they seem utterly blind to it.

Here is a quote from Johanson with the source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-14-you-thought-that-was-it-for-guild-wars-2

Concern: I hate being on an underpopulated/rubbish server! We were rubbish in the world-versus-world league.

“Population-wise, we’re doing great,” insisted Johanson. “We’re very happy with where we’re at. Six months ago to now, it’s a very steady, very very healthy population.”

With the constant(and it IS constant) complaining, they know. They just don’t want to do anything about it.

“Population-wise, we’re doing great,” insisted Johanson. “We’re very happy with where we’re at. Six months ago to now, it’s a very steady, very very healthy population.”

Needs more "very"s in it.

as long as the transfers to higher pop servers are paid, they are benefited by doing nothing about it. recent earning report showed that games such as STWOR make more money than gw2, so probably dont expect solution to that any time soon

You know, I didn’t believe you. Than I guested to Devona’s Reach.

I have never seen a more empty Lion’s Arch. It was fantastic. I am going to do all my non world boss PvE there. No morons in map chat. No million Twilight and Bifrosts clogging up my screen with particle effects. Truly it was a paradise.

I would be surprised if Anet would comment on this, but they never will

I feel my server (RoS) is just as deserted as yours, while still not at the bottom of the list, but close. Most of Orr always contested, making it extremely hard to explore solo on a fresh char. Important world chain events rarely (close to never) get done such as the centaur/Modniir or Ogre Wars. I’ve never actually done the Oouo chain in Timberline or the Covington one in Bloodtide. Never. No players around or willing to do these. You can be on a mid-level map and shout in chat for help with anything, you’ll only virtually hear an echo as there’s no one around. Very dishearting. I chose this server as my only friend playing it at the time was here. Now he’s ready to jump ships to a big server, when I’ve found a home with a nice, casual guild I refuse to leave. Even the latest LW commonly fails, such as the Marionette, as we don’t really have the manpower to beat it outside of maybe primetime evening 8-10 timeslot.

FrozenStarRo.7240:

I feel my server (RoS) is just as deserted as yours, while still not at the bottom of the list, but close. Most of Orr always contested, making it extremely hard to explore solo on a fresh char. Important world chain events rarely (close to never) get done such as the centaur/Modniir or Ogre Wars. I’ve never actually done the Oouo chain in Timberline or the Covington one in Bloodtide. Never. No players around or willing to do these. You can be on a mid-level map and shout in chat for help with anything, you’ll only virtually hear an echo as there’s no one around. Very dishearting. I chose this server as my only friend playing it at the time was here. Now he’s ready to jump ships to a big server, when I’ve found a home with a nice, casual guild I refuse to leave. Even the latest LW commonly fails, such as the Marionette, as we don’t really have the manpower to beat it outside of maybe primetime evening 8-10 timeslot.

Being from Devonas , I feel your pain.

I read this over a year ago. Nothing you have said is anything new. Stop beating on a dead horse.

All comments put on any of these forums do not even get looked at by ANET ,stop complaining about stuff you know will never get done ,speak with your gems do not use them to buy the rubbish they have in the store which is of no use to anyone. I am using my power of not playing the game ,it will wither and die but geeks cannot see the big picture. Rant over

Same shelf in Vabbi. I think highest guild size is some 100 there. :P

I totally agree with the Points 1-4, OP. I live on Desolation and havnt been able to even set foot on my home server since the last patch release. It feel like I have no right to be on my own server when new content comes out. Others have right to do so Before me. And No, I dont want to que for hours (maybe even a day or so) in order to get acess to my home server.

“Desolation did it” u can read… Then I feel: “Not me since I won’t be let in onto my own server.” And I guess I’m not the only one having that feeling.

I dont agree with Point 5 though.

I think if an issue is important to players, there is nothing wrong with bringing it up again – no matter how many times it has been discussed in the past.

The population issue is the single biggest issue in the game right now, in my opinion – more important than balance, new zones or anything else.

I think when the developer said the game population was healthy, he was speaking on a global scale – meaning plenty of people are still playing.

Server populations are in extremely bad shape right now. I would guess that at least 50 percent of the active population is crammed into 3-4 servers in North America. This causes pretty bad issues for the rest of us. WvW is completely lopsided and major world PVE events are impossible most days/times on most servers. People have to resort to guesting, which only makes the issues worse in many cases (but guesting has to stay – or those servers would be completely SOL).

There needs to be a better system in place. They need to either merge servers or make it easier to find the population we need to down these events. This could be in the form or underflow servers or by giving us more visibility/control over the zone instance we play in (when we zone into an area, give us the option to choose a different version of that zone based on critical information such as how many people are there and where our friends are).

Most importantly, the community needs to keep making noise about this. Arenanet needs to know how important this particular topic is to many of us. Otherwise, the way populations are handled (which encourages bandwagonning and results in dead servers and/or constant overflows, depending on where you are) will only make things much much worse.

In terms of WvW I think it should be servers as a team against other server teams!

Have the highest populated server join the lowest populated (in terms of wvw activity) and square off against two evenly populated servers, etc.

Well I know this would be a nightmare in terms of coordination but who cares! Those that have a good system of coordination will teach others in the process :P

I wish Anet would address this. Still nothing.

Raion.5280:

I wish Anet would address this. Still nothing.

To address it would be to admit it. To admit it would be going back on the numerous times they say the population is doing great, getting bigger. To say that the concurrent population is decreasing would cause a spiraling effect that would further decrease population if the solutions and statements were not handled well.

In other words, ain’t gonna happen until it doesn’t matter any longer. Although they are trying to address the underlying causes obliquely with CDI’s and the Dolyak Express.