Guild Wars 2

YB, TC, JQ, and Mag went full today…when population activity get adjusted on mondays right?

It’s possible they are adjusting things in preparation for fridays relink. Highly likely that these servers will loose any linked servers then (ie ET and AR) or get lower population ones.

No offense to the good people of AR, but I don’t think there is a lower pop server than AR…

Sarika.3756:

No offense to the good people of AR, but I don’t think there is a lower pop server than AR…

I have no way of proving it, but I feel that Kaineng could give them a run for the money, possibly also ET

This is why I’ve kept saying we should make a “Bronze League!” aka “Thumbleweed league” with AR+Kain+ET for those that wants that old bronze authentic feeling.

Interesting, though I am sure server status is not just calculated by activity but a combination of population and activity. I am surprised about YB going full though, did they get some recent transfers?

X T D.6458:

Interesting, though I am sure server status is not just calculated by activity but a combination of population and activity. I am surprised about YB going full though, did they get some recent transfers?

no their guilds are just all still alive and getting bigger. when you play wvw for fights, you will eventually get bored and quit. when you play wvw for ppt, you never get bored. that’s yb’s secret.

Bring back CD+AR+KN+ET

It makes sense for them to close when relinks are being done Friday. They likely did a ‘final numbers check+historical data check’ then closed the 4 servers to make sure that giant swings in population didn’t occur. After all, those can happen overnight/in a matter of hours in T1/2. Plus you can and WILL get locked manually if anet detects large numbers moving in, it happened last time BG was open.

TC/JQ/YB had enough to be full? Maybe they’re all getting some nice links.

Ni In.6578:

Bring back CD+AR+KN+ET

And make sure to put DH alone in T1.

joneirikb.7506:

Sarika.3756:

No offense to the good people of AR, but I don’t think there is a lower pop server than AR…

I have no way of proving it, but I feel that Kaineng could give them a run for the money, possibly also ET

This is why I’ve kept saying we should make a “Bronze League!” aka “Thumbleweed league” with AR+Kain+ET for those that wants that old bronze authentic feeling.

I don’t even know how many are even left on AR any more. There are only two guild tags for sure that I know are AR based and a lot of the people in one are also in the other.

Whoever it was that decided that TC was a “full” server clearly hasnt recovered fully from the end of year festivities.

Another great move by our beloved wvw devs, the first of 2017 and unfortunatly surely not the last.

Well, it is about time that A.net addressed the constant server moves by certain guilds to show that they can manipulate Glicko.

Mag in particular can queue all their maps even at hours that other servers cannot. So, if BG is locked that means that Mag should be forever locked.

Also, I think this mean there will be no pairing for these 4 servers.

Got some hot news concerning the end of year party in the anet offices. According to rumours (that have been verified) Gaille Gray spiked the “non alcoholic” punch.

Hence thus the reason why so many servers have been marked as full! The poor work experience person ( the one who is working on wvw developement for anet) who was trying to be so good at the office party got absolutley smashed and was unable to see the numbers…result.. when asked by the big bosses which servers were full, picked 4 servers at random in both EU and NA and said they are full.

Thus are the working of anet

Dusty Moon.4382:

Well, it is about time that A.net addressed the constant server moves by certain guilds to show that they can manipulate Glicko.

Mag in particular can queue all their maps even at hours that other servers cannot. So, if BG is locked that means that Mag should be forever locked.

Also, I think this mean there will be no pairing for these 4 servers.

I’m not entirely sure you’ve been on Mag if you think we queue maps during OCX/SEA, during NA we tend to only queue EBG too ( We love EBG and hate everything else)

and YB has nothing near the pop of the T1 loser of the week….. Makes no sense…

It’s a preparation to open BG so people can leave the “full” servers to it.
I can feel it.

Jeknar.6184:

It’s a preparation to open BG so people can leave the “full” servers to it.
I can feel it.

Is this confirmed? I hope so, because I’d like to transfer over without having to pay the War Council for a blackout.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Jeknar.6184:

It’s a preparation to open BG so people can leave the “full” servers to it.
I can feel it.

Is this confirmed? I hope so, because I’d like to transfer over without having to pay the War Council for a blackout.

Just contact Anet support and let them know you have family that plays on BG and you want to play with them.

The locking of a couple of the top 5 servers is really strange. I can see MAG and BG being full, Maybe TC, haven’t been matched with them in months, but JQ and YB. That’s where I am lost. JQ does not seem to have the numbers to go head to head and stay close to MAG and BG and I know YB for sure don’t.
Does Anet have a plan in mind that has not been shared.

I for one would really like to know the reason for this….

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

For population balance reasons, we’ve lowered the population thresholds for a world to be considered ‘Full’. This is to keep the population disparity between high pop and low pop servers more similar.

Interesting, but wouldn’t that make it more of a necessity to keep certain higher tier servers linked since it would be harder now for them to bring in transfers? I have been suggesting using links for lower tiers and a few tier 2 servers like FA and YB to boost their populations, it seems like that would do the most good.

Also please consider lowering the map caps a little. The lag and blobbing from stacking on one map is just too much, ty.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

For population balance reasons, we’ve lowered the population thresholds for a world to be considered ‘Full’. This is to keep the population disparity between high pop and low pop servers more similar.

McKenna, does this mean that even if the server arranges a blackout period, the lower population threshold will prevent a slot from opening?

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

…we’ve lowered the population thresholds for a world to be considered ‘Full’.

Thanks for the announcement.

Please consider cross-posting stuff like this on Reddit and Twitter. Even better: a short blogpost is likely to reach a larger audience.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

For population balance reasons, …

…to keep the population disparity between high pop and low pop servers more similar.

People are going to parse those phrases to death, drawing conclusions to support their previous preconceptions about matches, balance, and the state of WvW.

I’m going with: we wanted to try something different in advance of link ups. If it works, great; if not, we can readjust again next week.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

For population balance reasons, we’ve lowered the population thresholds for a world to be considered ‘Full’. This is to keep the population disparity between high pop and low pop servers more similar.

I had a feeling some manual adjustment had been made. To be honest, YB after 11pm PST has a serious disadvantage in population. For us to be considered full at the old levels would be absolutely ridiculous.

There are a handful of devs who play with my guild who are not on the WvW team, but I would really like to see more WvW team members in WvW to see the fruits of their labor and the passionate communities built around them. To get an accurate picture of WvW, you guys gotta take advantage of your free xfers and no queues!

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

For population balance reasons, we’ve lowered the population thresholds for a world to be considered ‘Full’. This is to keep the population disparity between high pop and low pop servers more similar.

Oh god, I thought it was just to prevent bandwagoning ahead of relinks and normal transmission would be resumed afterward, but this implies you’ve changed it permanently for this reason!

Do you not realise the implications of lowering the cap? Especially for those in non peak times? Sorry but you guys really do not understand the mode.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

For population balance reasons, we’ve lowered the population thresholds for a world to be considered ‘Full’. This is to keep the population disparity between high pop and low pop servers more similar.

meanwhile…. JQ,YB, and to a lesser extent TC have 0 chance to match the populations of BG/Mag (even if they were able to)…… at least without a new approach to the link logic….. if the new logic is YB + SOS or FA, well then maybe

Don’t see a problem with this, the threshold needed to be lowered a long time ago. Most servers have been open for a while and they’ve had a chance to recruit, even BG opened for a week to restock their zergs.

People come in here to complain every time a server is closed and yet don’t bother to recruit when it’s open. Learn the lesson already.

Xenesis.6389:

Don’t see a problem with this, the threshold needed to be lowered a long time ago. Most servers have been open for a while and they’ve had a chance to recruit, even BG opened for a week to restock their zergs.

People come in here to complain every time a server is closed and yet don’t bother to recruit when it’s open. Learn the lesson already.

Well said. BG opening that one week was pretty disastrous to what population balance there was.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

For population balance reasons, we’ve lowered the population thresholds for a world to be considered ‘Full’. This is to keep the population disparity between high pop and low pop servers more similar.

What are you going to do to lower the disparity between the full threshold and the largest pop servers?

Swamurabi.7890:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

For population balance reasons, we’ve lowered the population thresholds for a world to be considered ‘Full’. This is to keep the population disparity between high pop and low pop servers more similar.

What are you going to do to lower the disparity between the full threshold and the largest pop servers?

Evictions based on seniority!

Jayne.9251:

Swamurabi.7890:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

For population balance reasons, we’ve lowered the population thresholds for a world to be considered ‘Full’. This is to keep the population disparity between high pop and low pop servers more similar.

What are you going to do to lower the disparity between the full threshold and the largest pop servers?

Evictions based on seniority!

I know that wasn’t serious, but that’s the only way BG/Mag de-stack at this point without drastically lowered map caps / significant queues (even then the accts will go to sleep while they play other accts)….

Xenesis.6389:

Don’t see a problem with this, the threshold needed to be lowered a long time ago. Most servers have been open for a while and they’ve had a chance to recruit, even BG opened for a week to restock their zergs.

People come in here to complain every time a server is closed and yet don’t bother to recruit when it’s open. Learn the lesson already.

1. How are TC, YB and JQ meant to match BG and Mag?
2. The population caps were too low anyway to properly cater for the size of the maps and the map caps themselves now its going to be worse.
3. Players in off hours on NA servers are only enough to really fit on 1 tier, its going to spread those populations out so they become much more sporadic.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

For population balance reasons, we’ve lowered the population thresholds for a world to be considered ‘Full’. This is to keep the population disparity between high pop and low pop servers more similar.

Thanks. I’m sure everybody will agree that it’s good to see something regarding pops.

I know there will be people crying that they can’t play with their friends, but surely the onus should be on the players to stop stacking and move to a server where they can all play together.

morrolan.9608:

1. How are TC, YB and JQ meant to match BG and Mag?
2. The population caps were too low anyway to properly cater for the size of the maps and the map caps themselves now its going to be worse.
3. Players in off hours on NA servers are only enough to really fit on 1 tier, its going to spread those populations out so they become much more sporadic.

The three servers you mentioned were tier 1 sized before, the only server than has not come down to tier 2-1.5 size is BG, and their accidental opening by dropping below the old threshold didn’t help. Also it has yet to be seen how many moved to Mag over their cheap link ET, we’ll see next week and if they are over the threshold then it’s wait and watch time on the ticking time bomb bandwagon.

What other solution do you expect them to pull out? Like I said those 3 servers have been open and still haven’t recruited enough catch BG, do you want them to leave it to be a constant arms race with BG?

You can’t bring 22 servers up to BG or Mag’s population levels, it has to be the other way around.

Xenesis.6389:

What other solution do you expect them to pull out? Like I said those 3 servers have been open and still haven’t recruited enough catch BG, do you want them to leave it to be a constant arms race with BG?

You can’t bring 22 servers up to BG or Mag’s population levels, it has to be the other way around.

Solution to what? Whats suddenly come up that required this? Like I said I can understand a temp manual closure pending relinks but this is clearly not that. If you mean the overall population disparity this is not a solution, it hasn’t worked before so why this change? Its more likely to drive players away. The player base is too small for the number of servers even with links and that is even more of an issue for players in non NA time zones that this is not a solution for.

There are guild issues to that make it problematic to spread out, primarily guild recruitment but anet remains oblivious to these issues.

So still sticking with these old useless servers.. Please just link all the servers into 2 tiers or something.. this is not working.

To those that state that the “old” server caps was too small for the game mode (to fill all maps in all time zones). It might be that ANet never intended the game to work that way, and that servers wheren’t supposed to be that big?

Problem is that ANet has never stated what they really wanted WvW to be, so everyone is running around enforcing their own vision of WvW, without the slightest clue what ANet is actually thinking.

displayname.8315:

So still sticking with these old useless servers.. Please just link all the servers into 2 tiers or something.. this is not working.

Yay, we’re all going to become EotM!!!

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

For population balance reasons, we’ve lowered the population thresholds for a world to be considered ‘Full’. This is to keep the population disparity between high pop and low pop servers more similar.

Very glad to hear this. While the details are a bit skinny (and understandably so) it’s good to hear this.

Does this mean that we can regularly expect every server to have a link partner?

Not sure what wvw was ‘supposed’ to be, but clearly we were meant to just all be playing pve and spvp, because that’s the only thing that gets attention. We get crap like this and crap like ‘5/4/3’ being considered attention from anet when in reality they are changes that required nothing and offer us nothing. The only thing that could make this crap sandwich worse would be for Mag to keep their link tomorrow. I’d say there’s no way, but this IS anet.

Xenesis.6389:

morrolan.9608:

1. How are TC, YB and JQ meant to match BG and Mag?
2. The population caps were too low anyway to properly cater for the size of the maps and the map caps themselves now its going to be worse.
3. Players in off hours on NA servers are only enough to really fit on 1 tier, its going to spread those populations out so they become much more sporadic.

The three servers you mentioned were tier 1 sized before, the only server than has not come down to tier 2-1.5 size is BG, and their accidental opening by dropping below the old threshold didn’t help. Also it has yet to be seen how many moved to Mag over their cheap link ET, we’ll see next week and if they are over the threshold then it’s wait and watch time on the ticking time bomb bandwagon.

What other solution do you expect them to pull out? Like I said those 3 servers have been open and still haven’t recruited enough catch BG, do you want them to leave it to be a constant arms race with BG?

You can’t bring 22 servers up to BG or Mag’s population levels, it has to be the other way around.

THE ON LY time YB was T1 recently was when they got a great link and rose from low t3 with FC.

joneirikb.7506:

To those that state that the “old” server caps was too small for the game mode (to fill all maps in all time zones). It might be that ANet never intended the game to work that way, and that servers wheren’t supposed to be that big?

Problem is that ANet has never stated what they really wanted WvW to be, so everyone is running around enforcing their own vision of WvW, without the slightest clue what ANet is actually thinking.

Nobody left at anet has any vision for WvW, perhaps with the exception of Tyler B but of course he was moved off WvW development.

joneirikb.7506:

displayname.8315:

So still sticking with these old useless servers.. Please just link all the servers into 2 tiers or something.. this is not working.

Yay, we’re all going to become EotM!!!

If you choose to run up levels and follow commanders that only PvD for XP that’s your fault. The servers don’t work for a lick, but still would be better than eotm.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Chaba.5410:

Xenesis.6389:

Don’t see a problem with this, the threshold needed to be lowered a long time ago. Most servers have been open for a while and they’ve had a chance to recruit, even BG opened for a week to restock their zergs.

People come in here to complain every time a server is closed and yet don’t bother to recruit when it’s open. Learn the lesson already.

Well said. BG opening that one week was pretty disastrous to what population balance there was.

No it wasn’t and your post is a real laugh. Honestly, with the way Mag was buying guilds, they are the big cheese now, not BG and TC is pretty close to the same level as Mag.

Honestly I think A.Net should force the populations even lower by forcing recent guilds that transferred either back to their original server or to one that is open. This way, there will be more of a balance and more rotation for the servers.

It was perfectly said. The threshold needed to be lowered a long time ago, before BG had opened up. Before that there was possibility of relatively even-populated servers rotating with each other but afterwards the population disparity between tiers became too great. No, no one can stack a server to BG/old T1 levels anymore without a link. Let BG rot with boredom if they won’t destack. No, they’re not going to destack just because someone on Mag decided to buy everyone to beat them down.

not sure how this does anything for balance for servers like JQ and TC who roll tier 1 against MAG and BG .

kitten ya good change

This is TOTAL BULLkitten.

We have guild members on our linked server (Deso + vabbi) that were hoping to join us once de-linking occured – but held off in-case there was a slim chance the whole linking fiasco was going to be rebalanced. Now they are stuck and can’t play with the guild.

Why the kitten did you not announce this before hand!!!???? No clarity, no transparency – are you surprised no one thinks you’re capable of providing any meaningful solutions to the hole you’ve dug for WvW?

Lowering the population cap makes no sense as it is. You’ve already handicapped us with shoving Desert BL back in our faces (which no one ever plays on in prime), now you pull this sneaky kitten.

Sort yourselves out, its getting amateurish.

Great Combat, Great Community, kittening kittene Support.

Maybe we should start opening our own community forums to get ready to move teh community to Crowfall or Camelot Unchained. You’ve pretty much blown it Anet.

Byron.1902:

This is TOTAL BULLkitten.

We have guild members on our linked server (Deso + vabbi) that were hoping to join us once de-linking occured – but held off in-case there was a slim chance the whole linking fiasco was going to be rebalanced. Now they are stuck and can’t play with the guild.

Why the kitten did you not announce this before hand!!!???? No clarity, no transparency – are you surprised no one thinks you’re capable of providing any meaningful solutions to the hole you’ve dug for WvW?

Lowering the population cap makes no sense as it is. You’ve already handicapped us with shoving Desert BL back in our faces (which no one ever plays on in prime), now you pull this sneaky kitten.

Sort yourselves out, its getting amateurish.

Great Combat, Great Community, kittening kittene Support.

Maybe we should start opening our own community forums to get ready to move teh community to Crowfall or Camelot Unchained. You’ve pretty much blown it Anet.

You know your guild could always move down to join them on one of the open servers.
That’s kind of the whole point in lowering the pop cap, to spread the population out…

Jim Hunter.6821:

You know your guild could always move down to join them on one of the open servers.
That’s kind of the whole point in lowering the pop cap, to spread the population out…

You telling them to leave their stacked server to join a low population one so they can play as a guild? Heretic! You shall burn in the flames of Glicko Hell.

When has locking servers balanced T1?