Guild Wars 2

Tyler Bearce.3427:

On Why World Linking?

due to it better preserving the identity of all original worlds, and being more flexible than a more traditional World Merging solution.

What? you destroyed one servers identity and kept the other. If you’re gonna do that at least swap off the name every week or go down the server merging route and rename the resulting server so everyone has a new similar name.

He actually reads the forum and people grousing about Reddit only.

*sniff

Feel loved folks.

For the record: No on elaborate system, it feels too much like EoTM at reference.

As for the 800 vs 500 gems, I think, as someone else rightly pointed out, if you can grind that in a day in pve it’s not going to have much impact on the bandwagoners. Make it 2500 (or more) gems, or do, as you suggested linking more frequently (which kind of wreaks havoc on the community ecosystem though).

Jayne.9251:

He actually reads the forum and people grousing about Reddit only.

*sniff

Feel loved folks.

For the record: No on elaborate system, it feels too much like EoTM at reference.

As for the 800 vs 500 gems, I think, as someone else rightly pointed out, if you can grind that in a day in pve it’s not going to have much impact on the bandwagoners. Make it 2500 (or more) gems, or do, as you suggested linking more frequently (which kind of wreaks havoc on the community ecosystem though).

That does not have the desired affect. All that happens is those who can afford to transfer do as they please, and those who are unhappy on their server leave the game entirely. Most of these transfers are paid for by credit card and if money is not an issue it doesn’t make a difference. Increased costs to get out of a situation you are not happy with = easier to leave the game entirely than pay.

This equates to only those who can afford to be happy will. I would think they would want to encourage more participation, not less.

Is blackgate going to open up?

Tyler B, the superstar developer for Anet, seriously dude thanks for reading the forums and posting the information here. Maybe people will read this and understand how you guys came to the decision you did and where it can go from here.

Especially

Notice that Blackgate was not the highest ranking world, and due to transfer bandwagoning Tarnished Coast was rising fast out of T2. Would it have been fair to leave YB, BG and JQ unlinked, but then link TC? Had we done so, we’d just be seeing a different world (or set of worlds) dominating T1 right now.

Anyway, probably the next most reasonable option, other than what we actually did, would be to leave NA T1&2 unlinked and then link T3+T8, T4+T7 and T5+T6. At the time we believed players (especially on T1 & T2) would view this as less fair, but now that players have actually experienced it, perhaps this is the way to go the next time we re-link worlds (assuming World Linking wins the vote.)

Now that players have experienced it, it should be an easier pill to swallow about leaving some servers unlinked.

Next let’s consider the fact that there are 24 worlds in NA. Linking T1 allowed us to match the top 12 with the bottom 12, giving every world a partner. Had we decided not to link T1, then we would have been left with the top 9 and the bottom 12. This no longer links evenly, unless we give one tier a third partner, or leave yet another tier partnerless (most likely T2.)

It’s become apparent that T8 may not want to be linked with any servers either, there’s a subsection of players who don’t want to join in the mass fights. So it could become top 9 matched with bottom 9, with the very top 3 and the very bottom 3 left out. Or if anything link them to the current T4 servers to help those servers better compete with T2/3 servers. (T3/4 glicko gap needs to be fixed though.)

The WvW World Rank leaderboard becomes less meaningful.

It does not matter at this point because there is no seasons, there is no tournaments, what is the point of having rankings for servers? it’s completely meaningless already. Ranks are only used to determine matchup tiers.

At the end of all this though, the point of the changes to me, is to bring all servers close together in population balance and coverage, get the scoring closer, and then looking forward to having enjoyable and close matches the entire week no matter what server you rolled up against. Who cares who’s number one right now, because we all know it’s only because they have more players and better coverage.

2. Acceptance – Our two ‘quick’ solutions were World Linking and World Merging. We went with World Linking because we felt players would be more likely to approve it, due to it better preserving the identity of all original worlds, and being more flexible than a more traditional World Merging solution.

Unfortunately I don’t think the linked worlds identities are being preserved. When you run around wvw now you completely feel like you’re on the host world, being in T4 it feels like my server has completely died already.

If linking sticks around one of the things that needs to be work on right away is actually trying to preserver the link servers. One way may be showing the dual tags in many areas, like the messages of what world just captured a structure.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Link info

Thank you for posting this here in addition to reddit.

What is wrong with the world linking is the way you are choosing to link them. Time zone coverage is MORE IMPORTANT than overall population when considering linking servers. As many had pointed out, it is bad to link 2 NA prime time heavy servers and then link 2 OCX heavy servers, as what appears to be the case in some of the linking done. You do not just take and match up bottom and top tiers, because that fails to address the balance issues made worse or solved by the pairings. All that happens when you merge a NA prime heavy with a NA prime heavy is bad queues and people leave the game over it since they cannot play the game during the time they actually have to play it. If you only have 2 hours to play and your server is queued that entire time, guess you do not get to play Gw2 anymore? That is how that is viewed by those in queues.

Balancing out the servers would be a much better solution to how servers are paired, and if it takes pairing a OCX heavy with an EU heavy with an SEA heavy with a NA prime heavy to do that, THAT is still a much better option than pairing 2 OCX heavy or 2 NA prime heavy timezones together.

Population alone should not be the determining factor for pairings, but rather when that population plays the game. Where the server sits on the bottom or top tier should not even play a factor in this though at all, since that can be completely by choice of the server to refuse to move up. Servers DO actually lose on purpose to not move up, this should be about coverage rather than rank.

I like the idea where everything blows up and y’all relink/merge

Seriously tho anet do a complete blow up have total of 12 servers and give people chance to transfer only once so they can be with their guildies after that lock the servers for 4ever

CrimeMaker.8612:

Seriously tho anet do a complete blow up have total of 12 servers and give people chance to transfer only once so they can be with their guildies

So what happens when they invite friends, family coworkers and neighbors to come play with them later?

MOST important thing about a MMOPRG, being able to play it with massive amounts of people you want to play it with. The focus ALWAYS has to be about bringing in more people to play otherwise the game will die much much faster.
More important than what a world ranks is players being able to come on and be a part of a community they enjoy. Players need to enjoy the people they play with or they will not stay long. My sister quit playing long ago because she could not get on the same server with me every time she tried. Since she could not play with me, she didn’t bother playing at all. She bought the game, tried to get on server for a couple of months and left due to that.

You also have people who have no desire to play on the same server.. I actually know quite a few divorced players on this game where both parties play the game still… Do you think they would enjoy being stuck on the same server together? No one of them would prob quit the game and they shouldn’t have to do that when they can just go to another server instead.

We want to be sure the game is as inclusive as possible to ensure that the game keeps growing. Every person you run off due to being somewhere they are not happy is a player that ISN’T going to be bringing their friends , family, neighbors and coworkers to come play with them making the game die instead of grow.

TLDR; YOU SUGGESTED THEY KILL THE GAME FASTER

I will be blunt, stop wasting time with this world linking and just merge the servers for good, keep the top 18 servers of each league with their original names (Do not merge the names) and blow up the rest, RIP they had their chance.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

On Why World Linking?

We had/have another, much more elaborate, solution to world population imbalance. However, we decided to table it (perhaps indefinitely) in favor of World Linking for three primary reasons:

1. Time – We felt we needed to improve the world population situation as soon as possible. Any solution that was likely to take 6+ months was off the table.

2. Acceptance – Our two ‘quick’ solutions were World Linking and World Merging. We went with World Linking because we felt players would be more likely to approve it, due to it better preserving the identity of all original worlds, and being more flexible than a more traditional World Merging solution.

3. Complexity – World Linking and World Merging are both fairly easy to understand solutions. This ties back to points 1 and two, but a complex solution would have taken longer to implement, and have been harder to get players to understand and accept.

On The Elaborate Solution

Well as an elaborate solution, it would take quite a few words to effectively detail it, but the short version would be: We blow up, and then completely reform worlds quarterly, with a lot of additional rules governing the formation of worlds (dynamic number of worlds, keeping guild members together, not mixing languages, attempting to balance coverage, etc.)

On Why Not Unlink Tier 1 NA?

Maybe, though it’s not quite that simple, for a few reasons.
First let’s look at Tier 1. At the time we defined links, the top 4 NA worlds were:

1. Yak’s Bend
2. Blackgate
3. Jade Quarry
4. Tarnished Coast

Notice that Blackgate was not the highest ranking world, and due to transfer bandwagoning Tarnished Coast was rising fast out of T2. Would it have been fair to leave YB, BG and JQ unlinked, but then link TC? Had we done so, we’d just be seeing a different world (or set of worlds) dominating T1 right now.

Next let’s consider the fact that there are 24 worlds in NA. Linking T1 allowed us to match the top 12 with the bottom 12, giving every world a partner. Had we decided not to link T1, then we would have been left with the top 9 and the bottom 12. This no longer links evenly, unless we give one tier a third partner, or leave yet another tier partnerless (most likely T2.)

Then there’s the question of how much we should link worlds based just on their tier or leaderboard rank, versus weighting it more based on actual population, coverage, or compatability. Leaderboard rank is the most understandable, and, at least on the surface, the most fair. However, as many of you have pointed out, occasionally a world’s current leaderboard rank is not representative of the world’s current population situation (usually as a result of mass transfers.)

Finally, whatever solution we decided for NA, we still needed to devise a unique solution for EU.

Anyway, probably the next most reasonable option, other than what we actually did, would be to leave NA T1&2 unlinked and then link T3+T8, T4+T7 and T5+T6. At the time we believed players (especially on T1 & T2) would view this as less fair, but now that players have actually experienced it, perhaps this is the way to go the next time we re-link worlds (assuming World Linking wins the vote.)

On Linking More Than 2 Worlds Together

This is also something we might do. Especially in EU due to the difficulty of balancing linked worlds with language restrictions. World linking is pretty flexible, such that there could be any number of worlds linked together, all mixed with unlinked worlds as opponents.

so what your saying is Quick fix now Epic stuff later?

i’d vote for a Blow up add it next poll see how It goes

I would favor a blow it up option. Perhaps plan it out as a recurring cycle. Wvw’s very own elder dragon, completely nuke resuffle and form new servers every 4 or 5 years. Or with each expansion that could work too.

I have always seen works linking as a bandaid. Even nuking it all would be a stop gap. But one that could participate well with big changes to how wvw works.

Biggest thing is getting butts in wvw and not have us feel like we are competing for space since the maps queue so easy. It has to feel rewarding and accessible and no EotM doesn’t count as wvw. Look at your metrics for what queued players do while waiting for regular wvw. Most sit around or farm or hit another wvw map while they wait. All queued they don’t EotM.

Lol I am sorry this current linking system is so lame. I am on Dark Haven. For one…Ferguson’s Crossing… no offense, they don’t even know how to wvw for the most part. yet here they are added to us. They don’t contribute, and now as a result we have 4 other worlds against us and a server that doesn’t feel like it is contributing much. Now, my guild, which is a smaller guild, cannot even do a guild mission because we have far too many enemies and far too few allies in the field.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

On The Elaborate Solution

Well as an elaborate solution, it would take quite a few words to effectively detail it, but the short version would be: We blow up, and then completely reform worlds quarterly, with a lot of additional rules governing the formation of worlds (dynamic number of worlds, keeping guild members together, not mixing languages, attempting to balance coverage, etc.)

Just to reiterate my reply on reddit and emphasise this comment. I really really think something like this is what you should be aiming to do. Linking is a band aid solution IMO. Obviously details would have to be worked out but this would give the mode something of the flexibility it needs.

If you keep tier 1/t2 servers unlinked, what if a t3 server gets rolled into a t2 matchup, wouldn’t that give a somewhat unfair advantage? What would happen then, would that server be unlinked? And what if they only roll that t2 matchup for say 2 weeks, what happens then with the linked server?

I think keeping linked servers paired up for 3 months as originally intended is the best move. If its to short players will feel like they are being shuffled around and never get a good chance to fit in with a host server. If its to long they will feel like things are getting stale.

Changing the price for transfers is a decent idea. I would propose it be more like 1200 for t1, 1000 for t2, 800 for t3, 500 for t4. Right now basically the system encourages bandwagoning and server stacking more then ever before because it is very cheap gem wise to transfer to a winning server, and people dont have population/activity limitations to deal with like in the past that would mark a server as full. The only downside to this is that they would have to retransfer once the server is relinked. But since the linked server is cheaper and always open its not that big of a hassle.

I think server linking has been good so far in helping revitalize wvw although not without its downsides ofc. But I do think there have been more advantages so far.

If T1/T2 servers are unlinked then we’d see what happens with linking on low pop servers.

All servers with queues on 3 or all maps should not be linked.

Linking ought to make deserted servers with less than 50 people on all 4 maps to be able to play and actually put orange swords on something.

Also OCX/SEA timezone should be looked at when linking. It is ill-advised to stack a OCX/SEA heavy server with another OCX/SEA heavy server.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Chris and I just made several informative posts about World Linking on Reddit. I’m reposting them here.

On Population Caps

Some information behind the current server population cap behavior:
Many may already know this bit, but for anyone else who doesn’t: world population is determined by activity level in WvW (Edge of the Mists and Obsidian Sanctum don’t count). If World A has many-times the number of players on it as World B, but World A does’t play WvW at all and World B plays tons of WvW, A will have the lowest population, and B will have a very high one.
/u/piInverse, to your point on increasing world population levels, and especially some becoming full
This is not caused by the additional players bought about by the server link, but from returning players and a lower population cap on the host servers.
This is only partly true. We’ve also had a substantial increase in global WvW participation since reward tracks, world linking, and the return of the Alpine borderlands. On top of that, we use a fairly long historical tail on WvW activity level for world population purposes. Intent being to prevent worlds from artificially lowering their cap with just a couple weeks of intentional inactivity. One flipside of that being that even if global WvW population levels dropped next week, if they were still higher than pre-<aforementioned factors>, population levels would still go up as a new, higher week replaces an older, lower one in the window of time being used.
World linking problem: linking, say, a T8 NA world with a T1 NA world and doing nothing with population caps will make it very easy to pile onto an already-healthy world. So something needs to be done with population caps.
There are two opposing goals we can aim for.

• Short-term prevention of bandwagoning. To do this, we’d need to make it more difficult to join a world that’s already low enough in WvW population to merit being linked in the first place.
• Long-term health of worlds with less WvW activity. To do this, we’d need to make it easier to join a world that’s already low enough in WvW population to merit being linked in the first place.

As for what modifications we’ve put in place for population levels to not allow world linking to break the meaning and purpose of population entirely, we’re currently trying a compromise between going completely toward either the long-term or short-term health goals for world populations.

• Unlinked worlds have the highest population cap.
• Linked worlds have significantly lower population caps.

Some things we’re considering to help discourage bandwagoning:

• Increasing the cost to transfer to lower-population worlds (since they’re now often going to be linked to high-pop worlds). For example, possibly 800 gems instead of 500.
• Having merge hosts always considered Full, and their guest(s) all sharing the population their host would otherwise have.
• Locking out transfers for a period of time after world links become active.

On Relinking More Often

We are also considering adjusting links more than once a quarter. There are some pros and cons to this, but assuming World Linking wins the current poll, we could poll on adjusting the re-link rate.

Pros:

• More variety in allies and opponents.
• Players are less likely to bandwagon.
• World populations become more stable.

Cons:

• Matchmaking becomes less accurate. There’d be more unfair matches.
• The WvW World Rank leaderboard becomes less meaningful.
• Additional administrative work for worlds coordinating voice-chat/forum access with their changing allies.
• Players may start to avoid socializing and forming bonds with their cross-world allies, since they are likely to change often.
• My team(WvW) spends more of our time analyzing population and match data, to determine new links, leaving less time for other types of WvW work.
• It becomes harder to remember which worlds are currently linked, and know when the next relink is supposed to happen.

Want an idea to change WvW?

Lock GUILDS to their servers (and the people IN them so they don’t guild or server hop!) for at least six months.

You haven’t looked at the populations or you wouldn’t have locked the servers together – they would be movable to whichever server is larger with a smaller server to augment.

It makes me crazy that we suggested the latter and you took it as a quick out to just lock bottom and top servers (at the time) without any recognition or care of the populations and the server stacking that is STILL going on.

And shall we talk about hacking? It’s getting ridiculous.

Vavume.8065:

I will be blunt, stop wasting time with this world linking and just merge the servers for good, keep the top 18 servers of each league with their original names (Do not merge the names) and blow up the rest, RIP they had their chance.

I was initially much against such a merger idea given my feelings about world pride and community building but if world linking is the only other choice then I find it much preferable. Do you want to rebuild or find a new home once or every 4 months because for 50% of the servers linking and merging is going to feel the same?

Given the current results of on the poll I am actually kind of surprised to see so much linking push back but it gives me hope maybe a better long term solution might be considered.

China WvW link

15server become 6 server and “Two Tire”
more ppl and more fight there

“I dont know why Two no ocx/sea Server at T1 and ppl blame OCX/SEA no balance”

check link

http://imgur.com/XJPks9I
http://imgur.com/z8je11X

On The Elaborate Solution ->
Reading this, either our suggestions were read or proposals for server balance are on the same page as some of us.

Anyway, reading the comments. The main problem is community acceptance of the solutions and not the lack of possible solutions. Well, it is expected, the main problem is always the community acceptance.

Imo, the main problem isn’t coverage, it’s the points system. The current points system rewards PvE more then PvP, as it is now. What should have been done from the start is simply another scoring system, something that rewards fighting other players more then taking structures, that way coverage has less impact since if there’s no enemy to kill, there’s no points to earn.
I think that any population issues would sort it self out this way, players who wants huge blob fights would end up in servers that has that playstyle and vice versa.

The key problem of the system as it stands at the moment is that it ignores coverage.

I would fix that by making the match up algorithm more granular to score/rank at the skirmish level and then sum those skirmish rankings to form a final match up compatibility score.

You could gather the population stats at the skirmish level then for each skirmish you work out the compatibility of each server during that skirmish time and assign it a score, you could say use the average population of all servers (during the skirmish window) and score it like this:

score = absolute_value(server1_population + server2_population – average_population)

The closer to zero you are the more compatible your worlds are (i.e., populations combined, you are closer to the average population).

The further away you are means you either both too stacked during that skirmish window or both woefully underpopulated during that skirmish window.

You then take the sum of the scores for all skirmish windows for all server combinations over the 24 hour period and select the combinations that are most compatible.

This wouldn’t be perfect but it would factor in coverage (to some extent).

p.s., There is probably something wrong with my maths but the idea is there.

+1 on posting here. It can be rather disheartening to see more official posts on Reddit versus the games own forums. Thanks!

ANet,

Please replace the Core Base Map Mechanic that already CAN:

1) Reduce the direct impact of Server stacking to Match-Ups
2) Allow friends & family to play together from many different Worlds
3) Allow Off-peak capping, but let players to work out a solution themselves

Yours truly,
Diku

p.s.
You’ll probably ignore this, but all Veteran WvW players will point at these 3 Chronic Problems that need to be fixed…imho.

Based on the direction you’re taking WvW…it will never evolved into a SuperBowl style eSport. Where profits don’t come from players paying to move between World Servers.

You’ll end up wasting precious time & effort into Complex Solutions using the Fixed 3 Way Fight Model…forever.

Possible Full Solution – Google Search – Reboot Base Map Mechanic

i think first thing you need to do is find means to accurately analyze current wvw strength of a server solely based on the last 2 weeks. because i think lots of things already go down south there and there is never a need for unfair matches if you have tools to do that right.

stating that, the first world-linking wasnt done very well – community was already making lists of what pairing would make sense all over the internets and the one you guys made was simply .. uhm.. lets say pretty bad. we would have expected a grab for server balance but seems this wasnt even intended looking at pairing like deso & vabbi vs rof & wsr or gh & fow or dead Abaddon not even getting a partner. so right now nobody understand why you linked how you linked.

next, keep with the program. relinking every 3 months is just fine for the moment, but next time do it better.

I really appreciate that Tyler has shown an understanding of the situation going on IN the actual game, not just looking at numbers and statistics.

I have issues with your solutions to stop bandwagoning however. Firstly, raising the price of transfers won’t stop bandwagoning, look at how many people bandwagoned to high and very high servers.

Trying to stop bandwagoning is a problematic issue to begin with. Bandwagoning is a healthy aspect of the game that shakes things up, both as a server the receiving bandwagon assistance and as a server fighting a bandwagon, there is fun to be had.

My biggest problem with what you’ve posted is the server population method and reasoning (which has been in place for a while now, and has already taken a large toll on FULL servers). You can’t keep cutting off the supply of recruits to a server with the method you are using. Let me explain it with a simpler example, the reference frame of a guild:

To have a healthy guild, you need to constantly recruit. It’s not just about growing, it’s about maintaining your guild population. People go inactive, stop playing, die in RL, etc. Eg, just recently I kicked 250 people off my roster (many who were once core to the guild) because they were now inactive. In the wider sense, that’s 250 people on my server missing.

Imagine if my server told me I can’t recruit anymore. It wouldn’t take long for my guild to drop down to very low activity levels, but the problem grows more and more for each active person lost. Eg: Imagine I field 40 people, one person lost isn’t a big deal, 39 people will still have a lot of fun together. But as time passes I’m down to 20 active people, it’s now a big deal for every person lost because that great fun we had together is disappearing. Then we’re down to 10 or 5 people facing against guilds that are continually recruiting and getting fatter. At that point it’s time for a new game. The problem can be seen to be worse when you factor multiple timezones.

This example is exactly like what have been doing to healthy servers. Servers need recruits (especially guilds, but individuals too) like guilds need players. If you cut off the supply, the healthy servers will quickly start to struggle. The first time the new population lock was introduced, it left servers full for FAR too long ! Get real, by the time things opened up again most healthy servers were struggling and suddenly dropping to high status, skipping very high. There was talk about every T1 server collapsing at one point or another (including the now over-compensated BG), and some T2 servers DID collapse !

My suggestions:
1) The FULL status lock needs to be more fair and realistic, it has to factor in the HEALTH of the server, not just population spikes. How healthy is it for a server to have a lot of people on the weekend (facing against a lot of people) but be low during weekdays while still facing against a lot of people? For the majority of the play time, there is little fun to be had.
2) With the first point fixed, only then should your remove the T1 server pairings. T1 still needs to be able to come off of FULL status and recruit, don’t make this mistake again.
3) When you adjust the server pairings, look very carefully at how organised and healthy the host servers are. In my opinion, only tier one to tier three are healthy enough to be host servers. Pairing servers to those T4 servers is only hurting the game health. If you collapse T4 then T1 can probably get a paired server for balance.

4) If you want to really make meaningful progress towards population balance, you need to introduce a server and player timezone month-long activity metre and locks based on time. Players who are active in some time period looking to transfer to a server that is active in that same time period should have to pay more or simply not be able to transfer (because full server in that time period). Players active in a time period looking to transfer to a server with a low activity in that period should be rewarded.

I will mention one last point that I don’t think I’ve seen mentioned before. Even if you get the population balanced, that still isn’t enough. Because commanders also need to be balanced between servers and more needs to be done to encourage new commanders and to encourage retired commanders to return (eg, big rewards for commanders of some kind). My server in theory has the players in OCX and SEA, but in reality the lack of commanders and the reliability of players available aren’t in balance.

3 Megaservers (Order of Whispers/Durmand Priory/whatever) + 10 maps (EBG, 3 DBL, 3 ABL + 3 new map). Link everyone up and spread us out horizontally. Thanks in advance!

Thank you Tyler and Chris for the additional information.
I have to say, even with the changes that are undesirable to ME, I welcome the communication and effort of the WvW team I hope this continues to go on.

Even with the additional information you’ve given us, I still have a problem that I’d like to see addressed. Unfortunately, it’s quite a brutal point in my opinion but a point that needs to be raised.

1) Toxicity and the effects on the community

If many of the WvW posters in the forum are anything to go by, there are many individuals here who constantly berate people of their idea of WvW, their idea of “blobbing”, what WvW should be, or how “server pride” or whatever reason you’d like to include.

The very same people are also telling people to quit the game or WvW.

Speaking for my girlfriend and I, we simply do not want to play with these players.
And I’m fairly certain that many other people would feel the same way.

Problem with the server link, because it’s going to be updated quarterly or whatever the timescale is, there’s a danger of being linked with server with THOSE people. If the toxicity of each server gets to server wide instead of just individual spats, the teamwork that’s required to play WvW is completely eroded. The match-up for that duration will stale. Only the server with those individuals will continue playing.

That’s why, it’s still a resounding no for me

At the previous state of WvW, had we chosen a server with that kind of toxicity, we simply would have upped and left, if we had the gems.
Now, with the updates, we can’t even stay in one server and hop to another one, just in-case, the Glicko decides that we should be linked with the server we desired to leave behind.

I ask many of you to consider this scenario.
Perhaps it’s a very pessimistic view, but at the moment, it’s happening right now in my server.

BLOW IT ALL UP!!! …. But keep linking until you do :-)

Phule.1968:

Imo, the main problem isn’t coverage, it’s the points system. The current points system rewards PvE more then PvP, as it is now. What should have been done from the start is simply another scoring system, something that rewards fighting other players more then taking structures, that way coverage has less impact since if there’s no enemy to kill, there’s no points to earn.
I think that any population issues would sort it self out this way, players who wants huge blob fights would end up in servers that has that playstyle and vice versa.

Build all the objectives out of or around bloodstone/soul batteries. Fights within their aura supercharge them so they are worth more. But this bonus would degrade so that in a few ticks after a fight a group takes it unopposed it is worth less ppt. Also rewards defenders for successfully holding structures by upping the ppt.

Can even serve as a score gap closer if you are being pressured and can’t get on the offensive but are repeatedly denying the other side(s) your ppt from those structures is higher. Also becomes a consideration of how much you are focusing an objective as it could be feeding the other side more

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We blow up, and then completely reform worlds quarterly, with a lot of additional rules governing the formation of worlds (dynamic number of worlds, keeping guild members together, not mixing languages, attempting to balance coverage, etc.)

Afraid you’ll have to blow up the servers since linking have already caused imbalance/stacking, there’s no way around it now. If you do blow the servers up, consider simply using 3 factions with 12 servers, EOTM already has something similar in place for 1 map, maybe you can spread this method over to the 4 main maps without too much overflow, this won’t impact gameplay much since the play-style/norm for all maps are still zergs:

1. Blow up the servers

2. Calculate/snapshot player numbers for each server taking into account the following conditions:
- Total number of players on that server during reset
- Total # of active players out of total number of players that actively participated in WvW for that server during reset
- Duration of snapshot taken: Once per week for all 12 servers

3. Cross-match the 12 servers and group them into 1 of the 3 factions with 4 servers on each side

4. Rinse and repeat each week, you can even log the data and do #2 using a ‘counter’ manually due to time

5. However if you don’t blow up the servers, you can still use 3 Factions, except you’d need to accept the fact that there’ll be scenarios where it’d be 2 servers VS 4 servers VS 6 servers at times due to mitigation of pop imbalances, but end resulting population # would be balanced across the 3 Factions would be normally distributed.

• This will encourage server loyalty since players won’t risk paying so much gems only to have joined the wrong “Faction” leading to population stability. Players would then only transfer and risk gems due to guild loyalty or friends/family, of course this will only work on the premise of blowing the servers up initially.

Comments welcomed!

smashie.3074:

Thank you Tyler and Chris for the additional information.
I have to say, even with the changes that are undesirable to ME, I welcome the communication and effort of the WvW team I hope this continues to go on.

Even with the additional information you’ve given us, I still have a problem that I’d like to see addressed. Unfortunately, it’s quite a brutal point in my opinion but a point that needs to be raised.

1) Toxicity and the effects on the community

If many of the WvW posters in the forum are anything to go by, there are many individuals here who constantly berate people of their idea of WvW, their idea of “blobbing”, what WvW should be, or how “server pride” or whatever reason you’d like to include.

The very same people are also telling people to quit the game or WvW.

Speaking for my girlfriend and I, we simply do not want to play with these players.
And I’m fairly certain that many other people would feel the same way.

Problem with the server link, because it’s going to be updated quarterly or whatever the timescale is, there’s a danger of being linked with server with THOSE people. If the toxicity of each server gets to server wide instead of just individual spats, the teamwork that’s required to play WvW is completely eroded. The match-up for that duration will stale. Only the server with those individuals will continue playing.

That’s why, it’s still a resounding no for me

At the previous state of WvW, had we chosen a server with that kind of toxicity, we simply would have upped and left, if we had the gems.
Now, with the updates, we can’t even stay in one server and hop to another one, just in-case, the Glicko decides that we should be linked with the server we desired to leave behind.

I ask many of you to consider this scenario.
Perhaps it’s a very pessimistic view, but at the moment, it’s happening right now in my server.

I do apologize that you have dealt with that and is the main reason I say the biggest thing hurting wvw is that is so small and has a very quick glass ceiling of how many people can play on your side at a given time. If someone’s play time already sees a lot of queue they are not going to be welcoming to new people as they are potentially one more person in queue keeping you from wvw. EotM does not count in many wvw players eyes as anything more than a place to farm wxp and now reward track while they wait. They don’t go there expecting actual play or organization just pure k train.

Back to the OP I do encourage you to give the servers more of a chance. Find the commanders you like and follow them. I think there are only 5-7 commanders I will follow because they aren’t complete jerks demanding we all run specific builds or whining when an encounter gites south about how much anyone not in the ts sucks and ate making us fail. Find those good commanders and you will have a much better stay

I’d say merge servers and let players swap them once in a quarter. I do not like idea of being a minion server player tossed or linked with different boss servers.

Thanks Tyler

I really like the ideas of switching world links more often and not linking T1 / T2 at all. They just don’t need it as their own populations are still far larger then combined populations of lower T3 and below servers.

I do however wish that the system was more responsive when it comes to servers movement (linked or unlinked) through tiers. As my own server is currently on one of its downturns, we really should just drop instead of being stuck vs higher rated servers, when we have an upswing, we should go up and quite possibly get knocked back down, or stay there for whatever time.

This would at the same time make the matchups less stale.

Yes there is a danger of transfers inflating / deflating a server, but that can be very easily prevented by for example a server accepting only X amount of total transfers per week, or if a player chooses to, bypass that limit with a mark on an account which would prevent same player from transferring again for X amount of months for example.

You could even attach a different set of parameters to server transfers, for example: limit transfers if a server has moved up, etc.

Limitting transfers would be better then stuck matches.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Chris and I just made several informative posts about World Linking on Reddit. I’m reposting them here.

On Population Caps

Some information behind the current server population cap behavior:
Many may already know this bit, but for anyone else who doesn’t: world population is determined by activity level in WvW (Edge of the Mists and Obsidian Sanctum don’t count). If World A has many-times the number of players on it as World B, but World A does’t play WvW at all and World B plays tons of WvW, A will have the lowest population, and B will have a very high one.

This is the main problem since day 1 . Servers can manipulate their full server status by avoiding WvW for a few weeks so they can recruit more guilds and when they do recruit the server comes out to play again which creates a bigger lopsided score .
Full servers should only change to high status if people transfer off .

Tongku.5326:

Thanks Tyler

I really like the ideas of switching world links more often and not linking T1 / T2 at all. They just don’t need it as their own populations are still far larger then combined populations of lower T3 and below servers.

I can agree somewhat about T1, unlink the extra transfers into ET from BG and unlinked TC/DB may be able to compete somewhat with BG but that’s not guaranteed.

But what’s your definition of T2 though? Current rank 4-6? Because if you look at those, JQ/IoJ has a dominating OCX/SEA and an EU/NA that can’t compete with the other rank 4-6 servers at all.

FA/BP ranked 6 linked together is losing by a decent(but not runaway) margin to Mag/DR ranked 7 and technically in T3. Unlink BP from FA and they’d be no match against Mag/DR linked.

And what happens if Mag/DR moves up to T2? Unlink them for that matchup? So they lose a lot of what made them competitive to be in that tier in the first place?

A lot of people’s suggestions are easy to say and seems nice on paper but isn’t actually possible to implement in a practical way. Like the suggestions about an algorithm that automatically links servers dynamically, I agree with a lot of the criterias being suggested for the imaginary server and matchmaking algorithm, but have you(not you specifically) thought about how to actually implement them in a practical way?

There are things that are relatively easy but time consuming for a human to do e.g. making sense of large sets of complex data, but near impossible for a computer algorithm to do. Computers are great for doing large amounts of (relatively) simple calculations and processing. They’re not great at handling a near infinite amount of possible scenarios. Take a look at the IBM AI Watson for example.

edit: because Watson got censored…

Humphrey Bear.2698:

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Chris and I just made several informative posts about World Linking on Reddit. I’m reposting them here.

On Population Caps

Some information behind the current server population cap behavior:
Many may already know this bit, but for anyone else who doesn’t: world population is determined by activity level in WvW (Edge of the Mists and Obsidian Sanctum don’t count). If World A has many-times the number of players on it as World B, but World A does’t play WvW at all and World B plays tons of WvW, A will have the lowest population, and B will have a very high one.

This is the main problem since day 1 . Servers can manipulate their full server status by avoiding WvW for a few weeks so they can recruit more guilds and when they do recruit the server comes out to play again which creates a bigger lopsided score .
Full servers should only change to high status if people transfer off .

that doesn’t work, what if half your WvW population genuinely quit the gamemode but stays on the server and are still doing PvE and PvP? You have no numbers yet you still counted as full.

Nate.3927:

Humphrey Bear.2698:

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Chris and I just made several informative posts about World Linking on Reddit. I’m reposting them here.

On Population Caps

Some information behind the current server population cap behavior:
Many may already know this bit, but for anyone else who doesn’t: world population is determined by activity level in WvW (Edge of the Mists and Obsidian Sanctum don’t count). If World A has many-times the number of players on it as World B, but World A does’t play WvW at all and World B plays tons of WvW, A will have the lowest population, and B will have a very high one.

This is the main problem since day 1 . Servers can manipulate their full server status by avoiding WvW for a few weeks so they can recruit more guilds and when they do recruit the server comes out to play again which creates a bigger lopsided score .
Full servers should only change to high status if people transfer off .

that doesn’t work, what if half your WvW population genuinely quit the gamemode but stays on the server and are still doing PvE and PvP? You have no numbers yet you still counted as full.

PvE and PvP are irrelevant only WvW activity counts, despite what Tyler said they were trying to achieve the top tier servers all gamed the system because they were prepared to not play WvW for the month required and the population went down sufficiently to open the servers.

Tyler said they wanted it at more than 2 weeks because it would be gamed but they obviously settled on a period of about 4 weeks and it was gamed successfuly.

synergy.5809:

Tyler Bearce.3427:

On Why World Linking?

due to it better preserving the identity of all original worlds, and being more flexible than a more traditional World Merging solution.

What? you destroyed one servers identity and kept the other. If you’re gonna do that at least swap off the name every week or go down the server merging route and rename the resulting server so everyone has a new similar name.

Server identity lmfao

Teraphas.6210:

smashie.3074:

Thank you Tyler and Chris for the additional information.
I have to say, even with the changes that are undesirable to ME, I welcome the communication and effort of the WvW team I hope this continues to go on.

Even with the additional information you’ve given us, I still have a problem that I’d like to see addressed. Unfortunately, it’s quite a brutal point in my opinion but a point that needs to be raised.

1) Toxicity and the effects on the community

If many of the WvW posters in the forum are anything to go by, there are many individuals here who constantly berate people of their idea of WvW, their idea of “blobbing”, what WvW should be, or how “server pride” or whatever reason you’d like to include.

The very same people are also telling people to quit the game or WvW.

Speaking for my girlfriend and I, we simply do not want to play with these players.
And I’m fairly certain that many other people would feel the same way.

Problem with the server link, because it’s going to be updated quarterly or whatever the timescale is, there’s a danger of being linked with server with THOSE people. If the toxicity of each server gets to server wide instead of just individual spats, the teamwork that’s required to play WvW is completely eroded. The match-up for that duration will stale. Only the server with those individuals will continue playing.

That’s why, it’s still a resounding no for me

At the previous state of WvW, had we chosen a server with that kind of toxicity, we simply would have upped and left, if we had the gems.
Now, with the updates, we can’t even stay in one server and hop to another one, just in-case, the Glicko decides that we should be linked with the server we desired to leave behind.

I ask many of you to consider this scenario.
Perhaps it’s a very pessimistic view, but at the moment, it’s happening right now in my server.

I do apologize that you have dealt with that and is the main reason I say the biggest thing hurting wvw is that is so small and has a very quick glass ceiling of how many people can play on your side at a given time. If someone’s play time already sees a lot of queue they are not going to be welcoming to new people as they are potentially one more person in queue keeping you from wvw. EotM does not count in many wvw players eyes as anything more than a place to farm wxp and now reward track while they wait. They don’t go there expecting actual play or organization just pure k train.

Back to the OP I do encourage you to give the servers more of a chance. Find the commanders you like and follow them. I think there are only 5-7 commanders I will follow because they aren’t complete jerks demanding we all run specific builds or whining when an encounter gites south about how much anyone not in the ts sucks and ate making us fail. Find those good commanders and you will have a much better stay

There’s absolutely no need for YOU to apologise.

Regarding your point about giving servers a chance:-

• The problem still exists whether or not you give the servers a chance or if you find those commanders.

As of this moment, with the current server link and the rotation of servers, it’ll just be luck if you’re linked with a server with a community of nice and active people with kind-hearted and good commanders.

Each server will be relying on the Glicko and hope that the servers you’re going to be linked with will not have a toxic community. Each server will be hoping that they will have a community they can rely on, play with, and have fun with!

As of this moment, those posters that berate others, I simply don’t want to be linked with them.
It doesn’t matter how good those players think they are.
If they have such negative traits and attitudes and opinions towards players such as ourselves, I certainly won’t go on TS, I certainly won’t follow you and I certainly don’t want to command you, and quite simply I wouldn’t want to WvW with you.

Many of us will have already seen some of the posters here, with their names and servers on their signature, and many of us will have wondered:-

“Are we linked with these guys? What if we’re linked together next time? Can we work together?”

If the current server link also continues to change linkings, we wouldn’t even be able to transfer to another server indefinitely because the linkings might simply put us together again.

As of this moment, if the polls reflect the opinion as of today, many of you have had a good time with the server link. But what about next time? or the time after that?

As stated before, my server is currently experiencing the above. Even if we are the only server who’s had a negative experience about the server link, would any of you want to be in our situation?

I think TC has been hit unfairly by the dev and the example used is a bad one.

“Notice that Blackgate was not the highest ranking world, and due to transfer bandwagoning Tarnished Coast was rising fast out of T2. Would it have been fair to leave YB, BG and JQ unlinked, but then link TC? Had we done so, we’d just be seeing a different world (or set of worlds) dominating T1 right now.”

Yes TC did get a transfer of several guilds, this was done some weeks before the announcement of server linking. At the same time however several guilds left TC for other T2 servers. TC was NOT “rising fast” out of T2, yes TC was winning matchups but not by 100K+ scores. Infact, the first of the T2 servers to hit T1 was Dragonbrand after the implementation of glicko changes and world linking.

Kaineng have brought their forces admirably to the fight, although mostly during the NA timezone. TC does not have 24/7 map queues on all maps. The scores over the last 3 weeks show very clearly that during OCX and SEA TC has very little coverage compared to other servers.

Would we see a different situation if YB/BG/JQ had been unkinked? Yes for sure. We would have competitive fights in the SEA/OCX timezone whereas at the moment 1 server is able to pull out a 60K+ lead over the weekend. Matchups would be alot closer and therefore alot more fun and exciting.

If bandwagoning is happening it it certainly not happening on TC. TC is not a stacked server.

Dangus.6572:

I’d say merge servers and let players swap them once in a quarter. I do not like idea of being a minion server player tossed or linked with different boss servers.

I feel for you m8, if I was on a minion server I would be raging, having said that all the current minion servers should be blown up and you should just join the more established servers for good and become a part of their community, I think Underworlds days are numbered.

On Balance and Server ID

Dont Link top 3 servers. Gold
Servers 4 – 15 are paired highest with lowest. Silver
Servers 16 – 24 are paired highest with lowest. Bronze

Continue to assign glicko to all servers in the matchup equally. This allows servers to fight their way up to name recognition I guess.

Reeval every month.

So I think this will keep small servers feeling relevant and also creates a tiers of different play dynamics. Also lets the top servers fight on even terms.

atheria.2837:

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Chris and I just made several informative posts about World Linking on Reddit. I’m reposting them here.

On Population Caps

Some information behind the current server population cap behavior:
Many may already know this bit, but for anyone else who doesn’t: world population is determined by activity level in WvW (Edge of the Mists and Obsidian Sanctum don’t count). If World A has many-times the number of players on it as World B, but World A does’t play WvW at all and World B plays tons of WvW, A will have the lowest population, and B will have a very high one.
/u/piInverse, to your point on increasing world population levels, and especially some becoming full
This is not caused by the additional players bought about by the server link, but from returning players and a lower population cap on the host servers.
This is only partly true. We’ve also had a substantial increase in global WvW participation since reward tracks, world linking, and the return of the Alpine borderlands. On top of that, we use a fairly long historical tail on WvW activity level for world population purposes. Intent being to prevent worlds from artificially lowering their cap with just a couple weeks of intentional inactivity. One flipside of that being that even if global WvW population levels dropped next week, if they were still higher than pre-<aforementioned factors>, population levels would still go up as a new, higher week replaces an older, lower one in the window of time being used.
World linking problem: linking, say, a T8 NA world with a T1 NA world and doing nothing with population caps will make it very easy to pile onto an already-healthy world. So something needs to be done with population caps.
There are two opposing goals we can aim for.

• Short-term prevention of bandwagoning. To do this, we’d need to make it more difficult to join a world that’s already low enough in WvW population to merit being linked in the first place.
• Long-term health of worlds with less WvW activity. To do this, we’d need to make it easier to join a world that’s already low enough in WvW population to merit being linked in the first place.

As for what modifications we’ve put in place for population levels to not allow world linking to break the meaning and purpose of population entirely, we’re currently trying a compromise between going completely toward either the long-term or short-term health goals for world populations.

• Unlinked worlds have the highest population cap.
• Linked worlds have significantly lower population caps.

Some things we’re considering to help discourage bandwagoning:

• Increasing the cost to transfer to lower-population worlds (since they’re now often going to be linked to high-pop worlds). For example, possibly 800 gems instead of 500.
• Having merge hosts always considered Full, and their guest(s) all sharing the population their host would otherwise have.
• Locking out transfers for a period of time after world links become active.

On Relinking More Often

We are also considering adjusting links more than once a quarter. There are some pros and cons to this, but assuming World Linking wins the current poll, we could poll on adjusting the re-link rate.

Pros:

• More variety in allies and opponents.
• Players are less likely to bandwagon.
• World populations become more stable.

Cons:

• Matchmaking becomes less accurate. There’d be more unfair matches.
• The WvW World Rank leaderboard becomes less meaningful.
• Additional administrative work for worlds coordinating voice-chat/forum access with their changing allies.
• Players may start to avoid socializing and forming bonds with their cross-world allies, since they are likely to change often.
• My team(WvW) spends more of our time analyzing population and match data, to determine new links, leaving less time for other types of WvW work.
• It becomes harder to remember which worlds are currently linked, and know when the next relink is supposed to happen.

Want an idea to change WvW?

Lock GUILDS to their servers (and the people IN them so they don’t guild or server hop!) for at least six months.

You haven’t looked at the populations or you wouldn’t have locked the servers together – they would be movable to whichever server is larger with a smaller server to augment.

It makes me crazy that we suggested the latter and you took it as a quick out to just lock bottom and top servers (at the time) without any recognition or care of the populations and the server stacking that is STILL going on.

And shall we talk about hacking? It’s getting ridiculous.

• There are more multiserver guilds in GW2 now than single server guilds, they are not bound by servers, so no they cannot be " locked" to a server.

• Locking servers reduces game growth. When players invite friends, family, coworkers, neighbors to come play with them, if they cannot get on server to play with them they do not play. If players cannot help expand the game population by word of mouth as they should, the game loses a large amount of influx of new players that prevent the game from dying faster.

• Locking servers just ensures players do not transfer off an already full server to balance out a match or be able to get more play time due to being afraid they cannot transfer their account back later.

• Locking people on to a server they are unhappy with just makes them leave the game all together rather than play when they are not enjoying their play time. You cannot " force" people to play your game, they either will or won’t and if you attempt to make it unenjoyable for them, they will just play something enjoyable instead and not play your game at all.

• Locking servers has shown repeatedly on other games that have done so that this just encourages account selling to the highest bid to allow people to transfer to locked servers. It drives up the value of accounts on locked servers and becomes profitable to sell those accounts instead of people transferring their other accounts. The locked servers do not disperse, instead players just buy accounts to play on the server they wish to.

Your suggestion is bad for the game short and long term and will directly result in reduced game population and the game dying out faster since you are blocking an influx of new players via locking them out while at the same time intentionally trying to make players play in an environment they are unhappy with. They do not stay long if they are unhappy. The point of a game is to have fun with those you enjoy having fun with. If you cannot do that, you play a game where you can.

+1 to Tyler and Chris, thank you.

Regarding Server Linking vs Merging:

I’ll take Linking over Merging any day, for the very simple reason that linking can be changed/shuffled. I’m not talking about this from a PLAYER perspective but a system/dev perspective. This gives them the ability to unlink and relink servers again, this gives them a way to counter population stacking in the long term. Depending on how they tweak and fix it up.

A straight out server Merger would do nothing except recreate the same problem we have had over the last years, with server stacking, locked servers, etc.

Yes I’m aware of the problems with linking servers as well, but most of those can be worked around (eventually).

(Says the person that still can’t decide what to vote...)

atheria.2837:

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Chris and I just made several informative posts about World Linking on Reddit. I’m reposting them here.

On Population Caps

Some information behind the current server population cap behavior:
Many may already know this bit, but for anyone else who doesn’t: world population is determined by activity level in WvW (Edge of the Mists and Obsidian Sanctum don’t count). If World A has many-times the number of players on it as World B, but World A does’t play WvW at all and World B plays tons of WvW, A will have the lowest population, and B will have a very high one.
/u/piInverse, to your point on increasing world population levels, and especially some becoming full
This is not caused by the additional players bought about by the server link, but from returning players and a lower population cap on the host servers.
This is only partly true. We’ve also had a substantial increase in global WvW participation since reward tracks, world linking, and the return of the Alpine borderlands. On top of that, we use a fairly long historical tail on WvW activity level for world population purposes. Intent being to prevent worlds from artificially lowering their cap with just a couple weeks of intentional inactivity. One flipside of that being that even if global WvW population levels dropped next week, if they were still higher than pre-<aforementioned factors>, population levels would still go up as a new, higher week replaces an older, lower one in the window of time being used.
World linking problem: linking, say, a T8 NA world with a T1 NA world and doing nothing with population caps will make it very easy to pile onto an already-healthy world. So something needs to be done with population caps.
There are two opposing goals we can aim for.

• Short-term prevention of bandwagoning. To do this, we’d need to make it more difficult to join a world that’s already low enough in WvW population to merit being linked in the first place.
• Long-term health of worlds with less WvW activity. To do this, we’d need to make it easier to join a world that’s already low enough in WvW population to merit being linked in the first place.

As for what modifications we’ve put in place for population levels to not allow world linking to break the meaning and purpose of population entirely, we’re currently trying a compromise between going completely toward either the long-term or short-term health goals for world populations.

• Unlinked worlds have the highest population cap.
• Linked worlds have significantly lower population caps.

Some things we’re considering to help discourage bandwagoning:

• Increasing the cost to transfer to lower-population worlds (since they’re now often going to be linked to high-pop worlds). For example, possibly 800 gems instead of 500.
• Having merge hosts always considered Full, and their guest(s) all sharing the population their host would otherwise have.
• Locking out transfers for a period of time after world links become active.

On Relinking More Often

We are also considering adjusting links more than once a quarter. There are some pros and cons to this, but assuming World Linking wins the current poll, we could poll on adjusting the re-link rate.

Pros:

• More variety in allies and opponents.
• Players are less likely to bandwagon.
• World populations become more stable.

Cons:

• Matchmaking becomes less accurate. There’d be more unfair matches.
• The WvW World Rank leaderboard becomes less meaningful.
• Additional administrative work for worlds coordinating voice-chat/forum access with their changing allies.
• Players may start to avoid socializing and forming bonds with their cross-world allies, since they are likely to change often.
• My team(WvW) spends more of our time analyzing population and match data, to determine new links, leaving less time for other types of WvW work.
• It becomes harder to remember which worlds are currently linked, and know when the next relink is supposed to happen.

Want an idea to change WvW?

Lock GUILDS to their servers (and the people IN them so they don’t guild or server hop!) for at least six months.

You haven’t looked at the populations or you wouldn’t have locked the servers together – they would be movable to whichever server is larger with a smaller server to augment.

It makes me crazy that we suggested the latter and you took it as a quick out to just lock bottom and top servers (at the time) without any recognition or care of the populations and the server stacking that is STILL going on.

And shall we talk about hacking? It’s getting ridiculous.

I’m in 3 guilds on 3 separate servers….. If they went with your idea should I be locked away from 2 groups of friends or would I get to switch servers by going into my guild list and repping a different guild?

joneirikb.7506:

+1 to Tyler and Chris, thank you.

Regarding Server Linking vs Merging:

I’ll take Linking over Merging any day, for the very simple reason that linking can be changed/shuffled. I’m not talking about this from a PLAYER perspective but a system/dev perspective. This gives them the ability to unlink and relink servers again, this gives them a way to counter population stacking in the long term. Depending on how they tweak and fix it up.

A straight out server Merger would do nothing except recreate the same problem we have had over the last years, with server stacking, locked servers, etc.

My bolding for emphasis because this is exactly right. If they were to do a server merge, within a month everything would be jacked up again. Just look at BGET.

You should delete the bottom tier servers and give them free transfers. You have exactly the same problem of stacking as before just on fewer worlds now. Highest population server wins guaranteed. Yes, the wvw population is higher now but that happens after every shake up and it will die down again. However old problems are now MUCH worse.

Spying is just a joke right now. I’m on piken, Desolation knows when a com tags up instantly and moves to that map. The other day, our commander Dc’d, and 10 seconds later the Deso com whispered him saying “I heard you DC’d”.
This makes organising suprise attacks on objectives impossible, and that is the only way we can take anything due to 24/7 deso map blobs. They have 500 tick all night every night due to vabbi bandwagoning giving them practically double the player pool that we have. We were formerly number 1 server until the linking now we are just facerolled constantly outside of prime time. When the number 1 server/s win easily by hundreds of thousands of points every matchup without even trying you know your system is unfair and easily exploitable