Guild Wars 2

I guess it was probably too much to ask this far into the life cycle of GW2 for an elaborate solution.

Thanks for the explanation. I guess I will stop kittening about linking now.

While I suspect that the developers don’t want to reveal exactly how the calculate “population”, would it be possible to share with the community the resulting population score they come up with for the linked servers? Add the value to the leaderboards or something.

Maybe a little transparency here could help with some of the confusion about how the developers see the current population balance vs the communities perception of it.

morrolan.9608:

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.

I know that the current system can be gamed. But what exactly is the point in spending time and effort converting a system that we know can be gamed, to a system that we know 100% doesn’t work?

Between the hype of the update and the bandwagoning, populations became extremely volatile right before the linking started. Things are a little more stabilized now but weird things can still happen (re: DB last week vs. this week). I heard DB had a 200-man queue for a map last night?!?

Obviously BG was just fine on its own and certainly didn’t need to be teamed with the largest T8. Consistent problems like this can and should be addressed more quickly with re-linking worlds.

Yes it sucks being ripped away from a partner you’ve established a relationship with, but it will also encourage servers to keep their own identity. I think a lot of us on lower population servers are starting to lose ours as we integrate more and more with the larger server.

I would look less at PPT score for this and more at population activity when rebalancing for matches. Linking can be a useful tool to combat bandwagoning.

As long as players are allowed to transfer and as long as population numbers are a big component to WvW victory, players are going to create stacked matchups that have unbalanced populations.

In NA matchups, are existing accounts transferring into the currently-stacked server pairing or are they transferring into server groups that are losing their matchups? I don’t have ANet’s data, but I know which outcome I’d bet on.

The game mode’s bigger problem is that stacked and imbalanced matchups aren’t fun to play with the current mechanics — and they’re certainly no fun to lose.

Fixing that would remove some of players’ incentive to stack servers, it would encourage players on the losing side to keep participating, and would keep the game mode interesting even in blowout matches.

If you add significant rewards for winning under the current mechanics, then every rational player who cares about rewards would be wise to simply transfer to the bandwagon server. No other tactic or strategy would even begin to compare.

From the comments, it is clear that the dev team has considered several possible solutions. However, it also clear that their main concern is community acceptance to the solutions. In other words, there are solutions that can really solve population unbalance issue but it might not be a popular one. It is quite clear the the dev team has to go a roundabout way of doing things because of the community barriers.

Nate.3927:

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…

To answer some of your questions

Mag already has a population that far outweighs anything else in T3 and is already indeed a T2 candidate. It is only in T3 due to some timezone gaps + the ultra slow reaction of the current glicko mechanics. FA is on par with Mag, actually, I think Mag is a stronger overall server then FA.

I see nothing wrong with Mag moving up to T2 and replacing whatever is the weakest there, especially if it ends up bouncing a bit on a temporary basis.

As far as timezone gaps go, remember that scoring changes are incoming and to some degree will reduce their effect. It remains to be seen as to how much the reduction will be but it will most definetly help out servers precisely and exactly like Mag.

You need to think a bit more about total sum of upcoming changes and give a bit of time for things to settle, at least a few weeks. I have a feeling that the 2 particular servers you mentioned, Mag and FA will actually end up being real close to each other, pending their links, which this is all about.

The thing I see as a problem is not that T1 has 4 servers but that the current linked T4 has 4 servers as well. SOS + GoM does not belong in a match up with linked Mag and linked FA, period. Current linked SOS population still comes under unlinked Mag and FA. So SoS needs to drop. Once the off peak timezone scoring changes go into effect it will have a solid place in whatever tier it ends up in and when the population comes back it needs to come back up.

The other issue I see is the system is too slow in reacting to allow server movement, I understand why it is this way, but as I stated, there are other and frankly speaking better ways to prevent server stacking that would not hamper server movement, or at least make it a lot more responsive.

Zhou.3605:

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.

And it was this attitude from certain members of DH that made a good number of FC not care about supporting DH. Why should we care about fighting FOR DH (since the guest servers don’t actually gain anything out of winning/losing) when from the first night, FC has been looked down upon from certain members of DH because, in general, we don’t enjoy blobbing. Members on your own server did their apparent best to belittle FC so I’m afraid you are simply reaping what your server has sown.

Clemy.8290:

Zhou.3605:

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.

And it was this attitude from certain members of DH that made a good number of FC not care about supporting DH. Why should we care about fighting FOR DH (since the guest servers don’t actually gain anything out of winning/losing) when from the first night, FC has been looked down upon from certain members of DH because, in general, we don’t enjoy blobbing. Members on your own server did their apparent best to belittle FC so I’m afraid you are simply reaping what your server has sown.

nooooo dont take the bait ;(

I kind of like the idea of unlinking T1 & T8(although, find a way to provide those wvw’ers(guilds) on T8 that enjoy large scale wvw a way for a one time cheap or free transfer to a linked server that will have more action). That way you have a tier that doesn’t need the added population, as well as a tier that provides those that want it with small scale wvw. Then the linking is 9 and 9 servers.

On the server identity problem, just list the linked servers names on the wvw screen in equal fonts, both visible, and possibly find a way to add server names to players in wvw(with the ability to turn that tag on or off). That would take care of any sort of piggyback or minion sort of perception for the lower linked server.

I also like the idea of the pairings changing on a more frequent basis.

I also, strangely, like the idea of blowing everything up. That idea intrigues me. But, I think that might be a fairly risky idea, as I am not sure how the playerbase would react to something like that.

insanemaniac.2456:

Clemy.8290:

Zhou.3605:

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.

And it was this attitude from certain members of DH that made a good number of FC not care about supporting DH. Why should we care about fighting FOR DH (since the guest servers don’t actually gain anything out of winning/losing) when from the first night, FC has been looked down upon from certain members of DH because, in general, we don’t enjoy blobbing. Members on your own server did their apparent best to belittle FC so I’m afraid you are simply reaping what your server has sown.

nooooo dont take the bait ;(

I’ll take the bait if I want to take the bait Rikkity :P

Can we link NA and Europe server together? So that WvW will have 24 hours fight.

Or is it possible to use Guild instead of World so that better fit in the Guild Wars title. Each guild can have their own rank, and be able to join in the map according to their tier. You can limit each guild to have less than 200 members. You can use color to name the 3 bl and leave EB as it is.

The key here is that population balance at each time slot needs to be more consistent and we will naturally have fewer transfers.

Matching up strong EU/NA servers with OCX servers makes the overall score close but the constant population disparity makes game play less intriguing. End result is “band wagoners”. Scoring adjustments would not necessarily help.

Consider: Each time-slot (8 hour window) should have a unique match-up. For example:

T1 OCX matchup: BG/JQ/DB
T1 EUR matchup: BG/TC/YB
T1 USA matchup: BG/TC/DB

Overall you have one weekly score for each server as an overall ranking, optionally a score within the time-slot. The glicko logic analyzes match-ups solely based on time-slot.

The challenge for ANet is there needs to be a 15 minute downtime every 8 hours to restore yesterday’s map state and matchup.

Another benefit is on Friday every time-slot can have it’s own fresh reset night, currently only enjoyed by NA.

Clemy.8290:

insanemaniac.2456:

Clemy.8290:

Zhou.3605:

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.

And it was this attitude from certain members of DH that made a good number of FC not care about supporting DH. Why should we care about fighting FOR DH (since the guest servers don’t actually gain anything out of winning/losing) when from the first night, FC has been looked down upon from certain members of DH because, in general, we don’t enjoy blobbing. Members on your own server did their apparent best to belittle FC so I’m afraid you are simply reaping what your server has sown.

nooooo dont take the bait ;(

I’ll take the bait if I want to take the bait Rikkity :P

i wanna take the bait but instead i just reported it as bait in the hopes that itll just get deleted for being super off topic :P

MURKATRON.8425:

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

Spying other servers is another topic. Let’s not mix it here. I am sure all servers are doing the same, using alt accounts or even logged to other server’s TeamSpeak. I don’t have accounts on other servers, so don’t look here.

Debbi (Deso + Vabbi) is still often outnumbered on many maps. I can provide screenshots as proof if you doubt me.

You have to remember that Desolation has been tier 1 server much longer than Piken has. Many Desolation players left to others servers, including Piken, so I guess this was one driving force causing Piken to reach #1 position. We dropped low because our numbers hit really low, we had almost constant outnumbered “buff” on 3-4 maps 24h7, except for the few hours of night capping. Without night capping Desolation would have dropped to rank 15-17.. Before the big WvWvW “renaissance” changes Desolation often had just 1-3 players per map. We got a lot of our numbers back, because of multiple factors:
- server linking
- rewards
- Alpine borderland back

The core of the players and most commanders are still from Desolation, but we got some very high quality refugees from FSP, such as TT/Ravya.

I don’t think Debbi’s dominance will continue much longer. I already see a bit too much elitism. Players get constantly kicked out of squads because of no explanation and somebody might tell them in map chat to leave the map (the latter is just stupid). I am not offended by that, because I rarely get on TS (due family reasons, I must really hear other things) and I am really bad sticking to the tag, but despite that I am often getting full stack (250) of heavy loot bags, so much loot is good for finances, if only the reward tracks would progress as fast as in spvp.

You must admit that Debbi is often fighting open field, not just sitting by the ACs. Anyways see on the battle field and keep it fair!

Assuming tier1/t2 are unlinked and left alone, how would this affect world status/transfer fees, etc. What happens if a t3 server moves up into a t2 matchup, will they be unlinked, if so then how long would that take, and wouldn’t that give them an advantage in such a matchup since no t2 server would have a linked server to team with.

Teon.5168:

On the server identity problem, just list the linked servers names on the wvw screen in equal fonts, both visible, and possibly find a way to add server names to players in wvw(with the ability to turn that tag on or off). That would take care of any sort of piggyback or minion sort of perception for the lower linked server.

I also like the idea of the pairings changing on a more frequent basis.

THIS. ^^^

Whatever happens, please address the ‘guest’ server identity in any ways which are feasible, and the more the better – in fact do away with the host/guest concept and treat both servers as partners. If we flip a keep, messages should show the server majority who flipped it – if that’s not feasible, then list both servers. Sounds petty but it really isn’t; this would go a fair way towards addressing morale problems in T7-8.

A player server tag would also be hugely helpful for those of us who recruit (and train) new and returning players. Very helpful for promoting TS and websites as well.

Identity is important for a million reasons, including the fact that if servers are re-linked every few months, we will all need to stay organized and retain our players as well as continue maintaining our websites and TS. We need ways to recruit, retain and help keep our communities strong.

Nanesh
Owl Legion
Kaineng

X T D.6458:

Assuming tier1/t2 are unlinked and left alone, how would this affect world status/transfer fees, etc. What happens if a t3 server moves up into a t2 matchup, will they be unlinked, if so then how long would that take, and wouldn’t that give them an advantage in such a matchup since no t2 server would have a linked server to team with.

Maybe have the pairings change more often. Perhaps on a bi-weekly basis. Lock the pairings down, but at the pairing change, if a server has enough points to move from T2 to T1 or T8 to T7, (or movement in any of the other tiers, for that matter) then reflect that at the pairing change.

Just an idea. Thoughts?

Teon.5168:

X T D.6458:

Assuming tier1/t2 are unlinked and left alone, how would this affect world status/transfer fees, etc. What happens if a t3 server moves up into a t2 matchup, will they be unlinked, if so then how long would that take, and wouldn’t that give them an advantage in such a matchup since no t2 server would have a linked server to team with.

Maybe have the pairings change more often. Perhaps on a bi-weekly basis. Lock the pairings down, but at the pairing change, if a server has enough points to move from T2 to T1 or T8 to T7, (or movement in any of the other tiers, for that matter) then reflect that at the pairing change.

Just an idea. Thoughts?

Considering also the recent changes to glicko and how it can have a potentially bigger impact on matchups, even 1 or 2 weeks can dramatically alter a tier in this type of situation. Also if in this matchup say after 2 weeks, that t3 server is unlinked and that linked server is now linked (lol) to that t2 server that dropped, what happens if that t3 server drops back down after losing the numbers from that linked server, drops back down to t3, and there is just to much shuffling around. I cant imagine anyone in a linked server would want to be passed around like that lol.

Heres my suggestion…

-Keep the rotations at 3 months, to long it gets stale, to short and not enough time to settle in

-Keep the current linking system, meaning every tier, not that I am opposed to unlinking tier1/2 but I cannot see it working properly to see it as a practical option.

- Make Host and Linked servers share server status to prevent bandwagoning and stacking, and help spread out the population.

-Change transfer fees for tiers..for example: tier1-1200gems, tier2- 1000gems, tier3- 800 gems, tier4-500gems.

-Change the way server status is calculated, players should be able to move around, but should be done in a way where bandwagoning/stacking is discouraged. Artificial lockdowns should not be done. If people want to play in higher tiers they should be free to, but there has to be some better mechanics in place.

Thanks, Chris, for the feedback! Fwiw, I am a Kaineng native and am really, really enjoying, for the most part, the changes that you all have been making to wvw. Despite my suggestions on server identity perceptions, I am definitely part of the “this improves my day-to-day gameplay” crowd. Keep up the good work!

Since linking, alpine back, and more match up variance (even though just a bit more than before) It has been a blast on mag.

Chris Barrett.3280:

Not to disagree with the idea that server identity is important, but something that’s been interesting to see is that “guest” worlds are tending to have higher ratios of “Yes” votes in favor of keeping world linking. Which I’m definitely seeing as more of a “this improves my day-to-day gameplay”, and not as a “I don’t care about my world identity”.

What I would say on this is, a fair number of the guest worlds have become subject to bandwagoning or whatever you want to call it, especially those linked to the high tier locked servers (going from what I have read at least). This poll has taken place after this has occurred. So, unless I’ve misunderstood, a good number of these votes per server will be from people who weren’t actually part of the server pre-linking, and therefore less likely to care (not sure if care is the right word there) about the server pride/ existing community aspect, since transfers will have been based on the logic of ‘This server is linked with a T1 server, therefore I will move here to play with the T1 server’, rather than moving to be on the actual server they moved to and become a part of the server community, like in the past.

Whilst data like the per server stuff can be useful, it is important to remember outside factors that may have altered it. It would be interesting to know how the proportion of yes/ no votes on guest servers varies depending on the number of transfers to those servers.

Edit: As an afterthought, the guest servers that got paired with the higher tiers had a lower general population before the linking, so the proportion of yes/no votes would be more easily swayed by transfers.

Chris Barrett.3280:

sionnach.5391:

Whatever happens, please address the ‘guest’ server identity in any ways which are feasible, and the more the better – in fact do away with the host/guest concept and treat both servers as partners. If we flip a keep, messages should show the server majority who flipped it – if that’s not feasible, then list both servers. Sounds petty but it really isn’t; this would go a fair way towards addressing morale problems in T7-8.

Not to disagree with the idea that server identity is important, but something that’s been interesting to see is that “guest” worlds are tending to have higher ratios of “Yes” votes in favor of keeping world linking. Which I’m definitely seeing as more of a “this improves my day-to-day gameplay”, and not as a “I don’t care about my world identity”.

One problem with showing both world names is that the strings of text can get very long. When/if more than two worlds are linked together, it gets very long. Much too long for the UI.

I do like the idea of showing, for example, “Devona’s Rest captured Durios Gulch”, if Devona’s Rest had more members involved in capturing the objective. Though for the moment this isn’t among our top priorities. Such a change requires programming support, and right now we’re mostly focused on the large task of scoring improvements previously voted on.

Thank you very much for responding! I feel like we are being heard and this is heartening.

On server identity: I can report that this is a major concern on Kaineng. To be specific: I am speaking for my guildmates and friends we play with each weekend (this is about 30+ core WvWers) and that’s one thing we all agree on; we take pride in Kaineng and we are a very tight knit group – and we’d like to see our identity in some fashion since it would give us something to hang our hat on, in a way (right now we don’t even have a home borderland – if we continue to be ‘guests’, we never will.) Identity markers of any kind would simply help us keep our morale up and keep our community intact – which in turn makes us a better partner to whoever we are paired with.

On the Yes votes; as has been said, this poll is a bit of a Catch 22. A Yes vote from a lower tier player might signify that we’re hopeful Linking gets the attention that is promised and it’s preferable to a merge or a reversal, but it’s not necessarily a Huzzah! Linking! vote.

I also know that Kaineng got a really good deal by being paired with TC! We’ve had less of the toxic element and that contributes to our feeling more positive about Linking as a system. But we’d like to grow our community too, and not be just a dumping ground for transfer players down the line. To do this, we need to be visible on the map and I REALLY like Teon’s player server tag idea as well. Anything that can be done to make recruiting, training and TS management easier on linked servers would be much appreciated. We put a lot into this game mode, and we want our server to thrive no matter where we end up.

Thanks again for your response.

Nanesh
Owl Legion
Kaineng

Chris Barrett.3280:

One problem with showing both world names is that the strings of text can get very long. When/if more than two worlds are linked together, it gets very long. Much too long for the UI.

I do like the idea of showing, for example, “Devona’s Rest captured Durios Gulch”, if Devona’s Rest had more members involved in capturing the objective. Though for the moment this isn’t among our top priorities. Such a change requires programming support, and right now we’re mostly focused on the large task of scoring improvements previously voted on.

If the strings of text get too long for the ui, either on the main wvw screen or in wvw as player tags, then how about this for example:

Take the Tarnished Coast/Kaineng pairing…..

On the main wvw screen, instead of having Tarnished Coast, and then Kaineng invisible and under that name if you hover over it with your mouse……why not show it as TC – Kain….fewer characters than the existing label, so should be doable for the UI. Other servers could also be abbreviated, as most of us use an abbreviation for our servers, anyways.

In wvw, just have an extra few characters that can be toggled on/off by players…for example, just add a K or TC to the player’s name to signify server. Very few characters, so shouldn’t be a problem for the GUI.

The people that place importance in server identity/pride/whatever you want to call it, aren’t asking for much. Abbreviating the server names on the UI so both could be shown, and or adding a 1-3 letter tag in wvw to signify their server……would that really be that hard to do? Imo, it is a pretty small bone to throw them.

Just a thought.

Chris Barrett.3280:

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.

Thanks for your measured response not claiming to represent an unidentified majority.

Your particular linked pair of worlds may be having a rougher time of things than most. By world, you’re among one or ones that have a higher than average percentage of “No” votes. So I’m hopeful it’s something more to do with your particular pairing, rather than something with linking itself, or with any specific players. Time and a change of linked worlds will help tell.

As a reminder, please do report anyone engaging in toxic behavior. There’s little immediate feedback beyond that player’s chat being blocked for you, but reports do help.

sionnach.5391:

Whatever happens, please address the ‘guest’ server identity in any ways which are feasible, and the more the better – in fact do away with the host/guest concept and treat both servers as partners. If we flip a keep, messages should show the server majority who flipped it – if that’s not feasible, then list both servers. Sounds petty but it really isn’t; this would go a fair way towards addressing morale problems in T7-8.

Not to disagree with the idea that server identity is important, but something that’s been interesting to see is that “guest” worlds are tending to have higher ratios of “Yes” votes in favor of keeping world linking. Which I’m definitely seeing as more of a “this improves my day-to-day gameplay”, and not as a “I don’t care about my world identity”.

One problem with showing both world names is that the strings of text can get very long. When/if more than two worlds are linked together, it gets very long. Much too long for the UI.

I do like the idea of showing, for example, “Devona’s Rest captured Durios Gulch”, if Devona’s Rest had more members involved in capturing the objective. Though for the moment this isn’t among our top priorities. Such a change requires programming support, and right now we’re mostly focused on the large task of scoring improvements previously voted on.

Thank you very much for the compliment and for responding directly to my posts.

As you can imagine, it’s quite difficult to raise a point without adding the “unidentified majority” into it.

I would like to respond directly to the point of the “Rougher Pairing”.

I will absolutely be inclined to agree with anyone who points this out, that a likely reason for our (girlfriend included) dislike for this server link IS influenced by our particular pairing.

However, it is BECAUSE of that reason, we do not wish the Glicko to continuously decide that the servers it decides to pair, may end up not pairing WELL with each other.

Yes, at the moment, it appears that most of the pairings are more than happy to continue with this concept and look at some improvements on this concept. However, it’s likely that those particular pairings, being the first pairings, haven’t experienced our not-so-fortunate experience.

Should the Glicko decide the pairings and end up having the “unfortunate pairing (s)”, WvW will simply become un-enjoyable for those servers. As the WvW team may have noticed within a day of pairing, bickering amongst our particular servers have only increased in the forum, and it’s must worse in game.

Diverging a bit I would like to point out, that I’ve also noticed that some of the posters have often mentioned that this server link is at least “some sort of improvement to WvW.” This makes me feel like that our WvW community may pretty much accept any improvements to WvW because we finally have a WvW team that is finally doing something about the game-mode.

That is why I also feel some of the people who dislike the current server link may vote “yes” simply because it’s “something”.

In the case of a “smoother pairing”
I would like to point out that even if we do have a smoother pairing, the points I have raised on the merged “World Linking Feedback” thread, those points then apply to this situation.

Again, thank you very much for responding to my posts.
The WvW gamemode means a lot to my girlfriend and I, and the community that we’ve decided to play with has helped us enjoy life just that bit more. It would be really saddening to see it being eroded by unfortunate pairings, which is why we’re so passionate about this.

We tend not to report people who are toxic to us particularly because we understand they, themselves, may have their own communities who like them etc. We don’t wish to cause too much drama and we will simply be quite British about it

sionnach.5391:

Chris Barrett.3280:

sionnach.5391:

Whatever happens, please address the ‘guest’ server identity in any ways which are feasible, and the more the better – in fact do away with the host/guest concept and treat both servers as partners. If we flip a keep, messages should show the server majority who flipped it – if that’s not feasible, then list both servers. Sounds petty but it really isn’t; this would go a fair way towards addressing morale problems in T7-8.

Not to disagree with the idea that server identity is important, but something that’s been interesting to see is that “guest” worlds are tending to have higher ratios of “Yes” votes in favor of keeping world linking. Which I’m definitely seeing as more of a “this improves my day-to-day gameplay”, and not as a “I don’t care about my world identity”.

One problem with showing both world names is that the strings of text can get very long. When/if more than two worlds are linked together, it gets very long. Much too long for the UI.

I do like the idea of showing, for example, “Devona’s Rest captured Durios Gulch”, if Devona’s Rest had more members involved in capturing the objective. Though for the moment this isn’t among our top priorities. Such a change requires programming support, and right now we’re mostly focused on the large task of scoring improvements previously voted on.

Thank you very much for responding! I feel like we are being heard and this is heartening.

On server identity: I can report that this is a major concern on Kaineng. To be specific: I am speaking for my guildmates and friends we play with each weekend (this is about 30+ core WvWers) and that’s one thing we all agree on; we take pride in Kaineng and we are a very tight knit group – and we’d like to see our identity in some fashion since it would give us something to hang our hat on, in a way (right now we don’t even have a home borderland – if we continue to be ‘guests’, we never will.) Identity markers of any kind would simply help us keep our morale up and keep our community intact – which in turn makes us a better partner to whoever we are paired with.

On the Yes votes; as has been said, this poll is a bit of a Catch 22. A Yes vote from a lower tier player might signify that we’re hopeful Linking gets the attention that is promised and it’s preferable to a merge or a reversal, but it’s not necessarily a Huzzah! Linking! vote.

I also know that Kaineng got a really good deal by being paired with TC! We’ve had less of the toxic element and that contributes to our feeling more positive about Linking as a system. But we’d like to grow our community too, and not be just a dumping ground for transfer players down the line. To do this, we need to be visible on the map and I REALLY like Teon’s player server tag idea as well. Anything that can be done to make recruiting, training and TS management easier on linked servers would be much appreciated. We put a lot into this game mode, and we want our server to thrive no matter where we end up.

Thanks again for your response.

Nanesh
Owl Legion
Kaineng

Im from TC and can fully understand where the Kaineng guys are coming from. Would it be difficult to have 1 week the host as the home bl and the next week the guest i.e Tarnished cost BL then the next Kaineng BL ? As we are linked servers it seems only right that we protect each others homes.

I’m curious, smashie……specifically how could Anet possibly figure out server pairings based on server attitudes and the people that play on those servers?

What, they would have a bi weekly psychological profile survey of server players to determine what servers might match up best based on their profiles???

I don’t see how Anet can possibly do anything about determining pairings other than it being based on some sort of points/population sort of numbers.

This is an mmorpg, and unfortunately, no matter what is done, one will encounter toxic players. That is not the game makers fault…..that one lies solely on the playerbase.
Whenever one encounters toxic players, all you can do is to ignore/block/report them.

But if you have a solid, workable idea on how they could accomplish server pairings based on mutual likeability of those servers…..I would love to read that idea.

Teon.5168:

I’m curious, smashie……specifically how could Anet possibly figure out server pairings based on server attitudes and the people that play on those servers?

What, they would have a bi weekly psychological profile survey of server players to determine what servers might match up best based on their profiles???

I don’t see how Anet can possibly do anything about determining pairings other than it being based on some sort of points/population sort of numbers.

This is an mmorpg, and unfortunately, no matter what is done, one will encounter toxic players. That is not the game makers fault…..that one lies solely on the playerbase.
Whenever one encounters toxic players, all you can do is to ignore/block/report them.

But if you have a solid, workable idea on how they could accomplish server pairings based on mutual likeability of those servers…..I would love to read that idea.

And to me, is one of the key flaws of the server link.

It has opened up a whole can of problems that I feel Anet didn’t have to solve. In the previous state of WvW it was the communities themselves, the people, who decided whether or not they wanted to stay in the server with such a “toxic community”.

You’ve read my first post on the world linking thread. We chose to farm the gold, convert the gems, and move from our previous server that didn’t fit us.

Instead, with this server link and it’s continuous rotation, we don’t have that choice or stability to move to another server if we wished to. Instead, we can now only…hope!

(Can we be paired with TC? I’m kind of jealous with their relationship with Kain)

Edit:-
Not to discredit the work of the WvW team neither, but it was also stated, that any plans ideas that could’ve taken more than 6 months to make to help solve the WvW “stagnation/decline/erosion/[insert your desired word here]” was and I quote:- “off the table.”

For me personally, most changes but this server link has caused so many problems for my girlfriend (technical issues such as laptop specs) and our fun (see points on world linking threads).

I also feel, it is certainly not my job etc. to find a solution to the WvW problems that persists. I have no knowledge, experience or skills to effectively offer an idea that is realistic etc. I find it quite astonishing that people constantly ask people for their ideas in situations like these.

smashie.3074:

Teon.5168:

I’m curious, smashie……specifically how could Anet possibly figure out server pairings based on server attitudes and the people that play on those servers?

What, they would have a bi weekly psychological profile survey of server players to determine what servers might match up best based on their profiles???

I don’t see how Anet can possibly do anything about determining pairings other than it being based on some sort of points/population sort of numbers.

This is an mmorpg, and unfortunately, no matter what is done, one will encounter toxic players. That is not the game makers fault…..that one lies solely on the playerbase.
Whenever one encounters toxic players, all you can do is to ignore/block/report them.

But if you have a solid, workable idea on how they could accomplish server pairings based on mutual likeability of those servers…..I would love to read that idea.

And to me, is one of the key flaws of the server link.

It has opened up a whole can of problems that I feel Anet didn’t have to solve. In the previous state of WvW it was the communities themselves, the people, who decided whether or not they wanted to stay in the server with such a “toxic community”.

You’ve read my first post on the world linking thread. We chose to farm the gold, convert the gems, and move from our previous server that didn’t fit us.

Instead, with this server link and it’s continuous rotation, we don’t have that choice or stability to move to another server if we wished to. Instead, we can now only…hope!

(Can we be paired with TC? I’m kind of jealous with their relationship with Kain)

So maintaining wvw communities, no matter how small they might be, is more important to you than maintaining and/or increasing the number of wvw players, and therefore, playability/action?

Judging from the polls, the vast majority seem to disagree with you on this point. I could see you saying that the polls really aren’t reflective of the playerbase because of players having already left, etc., if the poll was close……like say 45 to 35 % or something like that. But the poll is overwhelmingly in agreement on the linking…..seriously….76+% to 17%???? That’s a fairly authoritative and resounding YES.

And yea, I wish you could be in the pairing we(Kaineng) are in. TC, for the most part, is a bunch of really nice people, and a lot of fun to wvw with. They appreciate us, and we appreciate them.

Teon.5168:

smashie.3074:

Teon.5168:

I’m curious, smashie……specifically how could Anet possibly figure out server pairings based on server attitudes and the people that play on those servers?

What, they would have a bi weekly psychological profile survey of server players to determine what servers might match up best based on their profiles???

I don’t see how Anet can possibly do anything about determining pairings other than it being based on some sort of points/population sort of numbers.

This is an mmorpg, and unfortunately, no matter what is done, one will encounter toxic players. That is not the game makers fault…..that one lies solely on the playerbase.
Whenever one encounters toxic players, all you can do is to ignore/block/report them.

But if you have a solid, workable idea on how they could accomplish server pairings based on mutual likeability of those servers…..I would love to read that idea.

And to me, is one of the key flaws of the server link.

It has opened up a whole can of problems that I feel Anet didn’t have to solve. In the previous state of WvW it was the communities themselves, the people, who decided whether or not they wanted to stay in the server with such a “toxic community”.

You’ve read my first post on the world linking thread. We chose to farm the gold, convert the gems, and move from our previous server that didn’t fit us.

Instead, with this server link and it’s continuous rotation, we don’t have that choice or stability to move to another server if we wished to. Instead, we can now only…hope!

(Can we be paired with TC? I’m kind of jealous with their relationship with Kain)

So maintaining wvw communities, no matter how small they might be, is more important to you than maintaining and/or increasing the number of wvw players, and therefore, playability/action?

And yea, I wish you could be in the pairing we(Kaineng) are in. TC, for the most part, is a bunch of really nice people, and a lot of fun to wvw with. They appreciate us, and we appreciate them.

Not quite. You’ll simply be drawing your own conclusions from my responses.

Anyway in response to that, it’s up to the WvW community and the WvW team to decide whether or not the feedback I’ve provided about our situation.

A case study of (I feel) a normal couple who are active in WvW, who love WvW, who love the community they were in, have played WvW and enjoyed WvW for the majority of the 2 years we’ve been in-game.
A case study of an unfortunate pairing.
A case study of the unforeseen consequences of the server link.

Edit:- @ Teon – if you haven’t already, I have also edited my previous post feel free to comment.

Edit 2:- @ Teon – in response to your edited “authoritative poll”,

I quote my previous post:-

“Yes, at the moment, it appears that most of the pairings are more than happy to continue with this concept and look at some improvements on this concept. However, it’s likely that those particular pairings, being the first pairings, haven’t experienced our not-so-fortunate experience.”

Teraphas.6210:

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.

Blowing it up won’t fix issues. It’s like moths at a light, you wave your hand to disrupt them and they just resettle back where they were before.

The issue is bandwagoners or people looking for an easy win by stacking.

That core issue won’t get resolved by blowing things up. You’ll get a replica of the current situation in under a month.

MaximillianVonSchatten.6278:

Between the hype of the update and the bandwagoning, populations became extremely volatile right before the linking started. Things are a little more stabilized now but weird things can still happen (re: DB last week vs. this week). I heard DB had a 200-man queue for a map last night?!?

Obviously BG was just fine on its own and certainly didn’t need to be teamed with the largest T8. Consistent problems like this can and should be addressed more quickly with re-linking worlds.

Yes it sucks being ripped away from a partner you’ve established a relationship with, but it will also encourage servers to keep their own identity. I think a lot of us on lower population servers are starting to lose ours as we integrate more and more with the larger server.

I would look less at PPT score for this and more at population activity when rebalancing for matches. Linking can be a useful tool to combat bandwagoning.

If you are talking about dragon band then NO it was 5 in que last night max i see is 25ish on peak times 200 is BS

lil devils x.6071:

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.

The core issue is bandwagoners and people looking for an easy win.

If you don’t address that issue, nothing you do will change the existing status quo.

Even moneybags players will eventually start to account for the funds used in transferring. They don’t have infinite resources.

And those that grind for gems will be less inclined to hop, too, given the labour needed to raise the funds.

The cost of transferring should not be impossible, but it should require effort to prompt at least a good long think about doing it.

smashie.3074:

Teon.5168:

smashie.3074:

Teon.5168:

I’m curious, smashie……specifically how could Anet possibly figure out server pairings based on server attitudes and the people that play on those servers?

What, they would have a bi weekly psychological profile survey of server players to determine what servers might match up best based on their profiles???

I don’t see how Anet can possibly do anything about determining pairings other than it being based on some sort of points/population sort of numbers.

This is an mmorpg, and unfortunately, no matter what is done, one will encounter toxic players. That is not the game makers fault…..that one lies solely on the playerbase.
Whenever one encounters toxic players, all you can do is to ignore/block/report them.

But if you have a solid, workable idea on how they could accomplish server pairings based on mutual likeability of those servers…..I would love to read that idea.

And to me, is one of the key flaws of the server link.

It has opened up a whole can of problems that I feel Anet didn’t have to solve. In the previous state of WvW it was the communities themselves, the people, who decided whether or not they wanted to stay in the server with such a “toxic community”.

You’ve read my first post on the world linking thread. We chose to farm the gold, convert the gems, and move from our previous server that didn’t fit us.

Instead, with this server link and it’s continuous rotation, we don’t have that choice or stability to move to another server if we wished to. Instead, we can now only…hope!

(Can we be paired with TC? I’m kind of jealous with their relationship with Kain)

So maintaining wvw communities, no matter how small they might be, is more important to you than maintaining and/or increasing the number of wvw players, and therefore, playability/action?

And yea, I wish you could be in the pairing we(Kaineng) are in. TC, for the most part, is a bunch of really nice people, and a lot of fun to wvw with. They appreciate us, and we appreciate them.

Not quite. You’ll simply be drawing your own conclusions from my responses.

Anyway in response to that, it’s up to the WvW community and the WvW team to decide whether or not the feedback I’ve provided about our situation.

A case study of (I feel) a normal couple who are active in WvW, who love WvW, who love the community they were in, have played WvW and enjoyed WvW for the majority of the 2 years we’ve been in-game.
A case study of an unfortunate pairing.
A case study of the unforeseen consequences of the server link.

Edit:- @ Teon – if you haven’t already, I have also edited my previous post feel free to comment.

Yea, I edited my last post as well, after this response of yours.

As I edited into my previous post……this might be a relevant ‘case study’ in your opinion…..unfortunately, the latest poll resoundingly disagrees with you. The huge majority seem to favor linking and more wvw action, rather than personal issues of a small minority of the playerbase.

And I am not meaning that as some sort of disparaging comment. Just looking at the latest polls and the obvious direction that the majority of players want for wvw.

Am not sure how anyone can look at 76+% to 17% numbers and go……“yea, but those numbers might not truly reflect…….” With that kind of huge yes majority, it is hard to make any sort of reasonable case for “yea, but….”, imho.

smashie.3074:

Edit 2:- @ Teon – in response to your edited “authoritative poll”,

I quote my previous post:-

“Yes, at the moment, it appears that most of the pairings are more than happy to continue with this concept and look at some improvements on this concept. However, it’s likely that those particular pairings, being the first pairings, haven’t experienced our not-so-fortunate experience.”

I would be willing to bet that you’re wrong on that. Just last night, in wonderful TC wvw, me and a couple of guildies experienced all sorts of nasty toxicity. And I have experienced that sort of toxicity(as have many others) in this game and other mmorpgs.

See the end of my thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Experiences-on-two-different-server-pairings/page/2#post6172211

I realize that you’re in a toxic pairing, in your opinion, right now. But you don’t have some sort of exclusiveness on experiencing toxicity in an mmorpg. Anyone who has played mmorpgs for any length of time has experienced the same sort of toxicity that you are experiencing now. GW2, in comparison to a lot of other mmorpgs out there, both new and old, is extremely tame when it comes to toxicity, imo. Substantial portions of the playerbase in some older mmorpgs I have played were extremely vile and ugly……GW2, overall, seems to have a fairly civil playerbase, imo.

“Players may start to avoid socializing and forming bonds with their cross-world allies, since they are likely to change often.”

Ya I wouldn’t really worry about this point….most of the ‘forgotten’ servers’ players are transferring to other ‘real’ server worlds since the community of their new host server is so unpleasant. For the ones who haven’t transferred yet they would likely love the chance to share with ‘other’ host servers….it would allow them to retain their old identity and help them search for a new host server they do want to permanently transfer to.

Chris Barrett.3280:

sionnach.5391:

Whatever happens, please address the ‘guest’ server identity in any ways which are feasible, and the more the better – in fact do away with the host/guest concept and treat both servers as partners. If we flip a keep, messages should show the server majority who flipped it – if that’s not feasible, then list both servers. Sounds petty but it really isn’t; this would go a fair way towards addressing morale problems in T7-8.

Not to disagree with the idea that server identity is important, but something that’s been interesting to see is that “guest” worlds are tending to have higher ratios of “Yes” votes in favor of keeping world linking. Which I’m definitely seeing as more of a “this improves my day-to-day gameplay”, and not as a “I don’t care about my world identity”.

One problem with showing both world names is that the strings of text can get very long. When/if more than two worlds are linked together, it gets very long. Much too long for the UI.

I do like the idea of showing, for example, “Devona’s Rest captured Durios Gulch”, if Devona’s Rest had more members involved in capturing the objective. Though for the moment this isn’t among our top priorities. Such a change requires programming support, and right now we’re mostly focused on the large task of scoring improvements previously voted on.

As a player on a “guest” server, it was initially very disappointing and super confusing to always see the host server’s name when objectives were taken — especially when it was taken by my guild.

What seems to me to be a very simple, hopefully easy to program, solution to all this is to normalize everything and simply report the team color in these alert messages. For example: “Red Team captured Bluevale Refuge” “Blue Team captured Cragtop” etc. This would put both servers on even footing, be less confusing and actually might encourage a sense of team.

Oh and on the topic of naming, one of the things the DBL did so wonderfully was normalize objective naming patterns across all three BLs. For ex: McLain’s Encampment, Habib’s Encampment, etc. This made it VERY easy to memorize and reliably know exactly what just flipped, because every camp and tower ended in the same labeling name, if you will.

Alpine fails at that miserably for the nothernmost towers and camps and for south camp. And even after playing on if for so many years, I still get confused and end up referring to them by their capture/defend event names or compass direction — Lumbermill, Quarry, NW tower, N camp, etc.

A few objectives already have a pattern across all 3 BLs: Vale, Briar, Lake, Lowlands, Hills, Bay, Garrison, etc. But I, for one, would love to see some clean up in that regard.

Thanks! Keep up the good work and communication!

smashie.3074:

Teon.5168:

I’m curious, smashie……specifically how could Anet possibly figure out server pairings based on server attitudes and the people that play on those servers?

What, they would have a bi weekly psychological profile survey of server players to determine what servers might match up best based on their profiles???

I don’t see how Anet can possibly do anything about determining pairings other than it being based on some sort of points/population sort of numbers.

This is an mmorpg, and unfortunately, no matter what is done, one will encounter toxic players. That is not the game makers fault…..that one lies solely on the playerbase.
Whenever one encounters toxic players, all you can do is to ignore/block/report them.

But if you have a solid, workable idea on how they could accomplish server pairings based on mutual likeability of those servers…..I would love to read that idea.

And to me, is one of the key flaws of the server link.

It has opened up a whole can of problems that I feel Anet didn’t have to solve. In the previous state of WvW it was the communities themselves, the people, who decided whether or not they wanted to stay in the server with such a “toxic community”.

You’ve read my first post on the world linking thread. We chose to farm the gold, convert the gems, and move from our previous server that didn’t fit us.

Instead, with this server link and it’s continuous rotation, we don’t have that choice or stability to move to another server if we wished to. Instead, we can now only…hope!

(Can we be paired with TC? I’m kind of jealous with their relationship with Kain)

This is kind of what happened with us on JQ. We specifically asked Anet if we should move because we didn’t want to waste the gold for transferring if things were going to significantly improve. We were told to wait and so we did. After linking went live, guess what? All the main WvW servers were now full. It might not seem like a huge deal but we lost a bunch of guilds right before the linking because they saw the “leaked” news on reddit and jumped ship before it would be too late. Well it turns out, they were right and lucky. Now we are stuck on JQ with nobody on our maps to help us out except maybe a dozen pugs. Its quite frustrating.

One might say that we could move to a linked server for one that’s open but people in our guild don’t necessarily have the time or money to constantly change servers because of linking. Pay 100g now to move and then in say a month, its another 100g because your new link is a semi-dead server and you repeat this process over and over until just so you can get even fights? Eh, no thanks. I’d rather spend my gold on things I need or want instead of constantly having to transfer.

Regarding not linking T1/T2 and linking the bottom 6 tiers…I think this could work. I know I read above that someone said that T8 wouldn’t be happy linked with anyone, but I don’t think that’s true. I think T8 got culture shocked beyond belief getting put with T1 and T2. I think if they were linked with servers that were more of a gradual incline, they would have been better with it.

I’m also of the mind that merging > linking. I personally like the stability of knowing where I will be long term. I know many guilds in WvW move around a lot, but some people like to have a place to call home. If people want to transfer around or have fresh faces and new experiences on a new server once or twice a quarter, they are free to transfer around (and they will anyway). For the rest of us, it’s nice to be able to get to know other people that you are playing with. It’s an MMO, we make friends, we find people we like to hassle on the regular, whatever. Consistency is nice for some!

Chris Barrett.3280:

Not to disagree with the idea that server identity is important, but something that’s been interesting to see is that “guest” worlds are tending to have higher ratios of “Yes” votes in favor of keeping world linking. Which I’m definitely seeing as more of a “this improves my day-to-day gameplay”, and not as a “I don’t care about my world identity”.

I have a question on this.

Is your data that looks at worlds votes also taking into account those that were on like say Eredon Terrace before the linking was implemented as opposed to those that have moved there since?

Jayne.9251:

Blowing it up won’t fix issues. It’s like moths at a light, you wave your hand to disrupt them and they just resettle back where they were before.

Agree…

It’s the Fixed 3 Way Fight Model…that provides the flame.

The Apex Predator World becomes the shiny light…that the Moths will always swarm to…imho

how often do you guys measure population? say if person 1 plays heavily for a week then stops for a week, giving person 2 a window to transfer to that server. is that how it works or am i shootin at ghosts?

Nightingale.8364:

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

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

Not unfairly hit. Maybe unfairly tipped off in advance. The truth is TC was heavily stacking while BG was still hibergating. Even claims of DB hitting t1 doesn’t mean anything when both were in same matchups, DB keeps losing to TC. Right now as it stands, the server I’m on is using TC and YB like toilet paper and it’s feels so dirty… BG has overall coverage around the clock. No other servers currently can match them. There used to be servers capable of competing, but not now.

What is good about linking is that it maintains each server community and reminds players that the people they are fighting could end up being their teammates in a few matchups.

What is bad about linking is the un-linking. You already recognized the major issues with this in your cons list.

I think the whole WvW community appreciates that you recognize the issues and are working on them.

Thank you.

Nightingale.8364:

Im from TC and can fully understand where the Kaineng guys are coming from. Would it be difficult to have 1 week the host as the home bl and the next week the guest i.e Tarnished cost BL then the next Kaineng BL ? As we are linked servers it seems only right that we protect each others homes.

An EXCELLENT suggestion! This Kaineng gal is grateful.

Nanesh
Owl Legion
Kaineng

Tyler Bearce.3427:

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.

Yes I must agree EU feels like a bit of a mess with linked worlds because of the language restrictions. Seems like Abbadon’s Mouth got shafted almost as much as Ring of Fire and Whiteside Ridge (we like to be called RoWSR now =D) and populations we’ve faced haven’t been anywhere near equal.

The “subworlds” (ANet’s term, by the way) are very unfairly disadvantaged in the current system. “Significantly lower population caps”?! No wonder we can’t all get into the same map together when we are trying to rally as a guild!

What reason do the subworlds have to care about WvW anymore? Our points aren’t our own, our names aren’t our own, our ranking is fossilized with absolutely no prospect of ever becoming a host world ever, our player kills don’t count toward the score anyway, we face more frequent and longer queues than the host world players. I’m looking for a legitimate answer here, because I can’t see any advantage to linking for the subworlds’ players.

And as others have already mention:
-linking does not address the coverage issue; there are still long periods of time where there are only a handful of players on any given map, or worse, a handful of friendlies and a giant blob of enemies spawncamping.
-linking does not actually address population imbalance.
-linking provides opportunities for “elite, higher tier” worlds to bully lower-tier worlds (not exactly the outcome of the “opportunities to make new friends” ANet expected).
-the guest worlds face logistical nightmares trying to intergrate into the host worlds, only to be quickly thrown around and have to do it again when the next linking happens.
-player choice of server style is completely gone, and the only option left is blobbing (EotM 2: New and improved! Now with queues!!).

Please just get rid of the linking and see if the other WvW changes, such as the implementation of the reward tracks, had any affect on WvW activity. This can only be tested if only one thing is changed at a time. Otherwise how can you possibly know what worked and what didn’t?

Chris Barrett.3280:

sionnach.5391:

Whatever happens, please address the ‘guest’ server identity in any ways which are feasible, and the more the better – in fact do away with the host/guest concept and treat both servers as partners. If we flip a keep, messages should show the server majority who flipped it – if that’s not feasible, then list both servers. Sounds petty but it really isn’t; this would go a fair way towards addressing morale problems in T7-8.

Not to disagree with the idea that server identity is important, but something that’s been interesting to see is that “guest” worlds are tending to have higher ratios of “Yes” votes in favor of keeping world linking. Which I’m definitely seeing as more of a “this improves my day-to-day gameplay”, and not as a “I don’t care about my world identity”.

One problem with showing both world names is that the strings of text can get very long.

I do like the idea of showing, for example, “Devona’s Rest captured Durios Gulch”, if Devona’s Rest had more members involved in capturing the objective.

I voted “Yes” for World Linking because I’m hopeful for improvements and it has had a greatly noticeable impact on activity, but if the survey had flat-out said that the current implementation of server names/identity was going to stay the same, I would have voted “No.” It’s confusing to new players, and it has quickly gotten annoying explaining it. It was also annoying to remember the host server; probably going to be briefly disorienting when/if the pairs ever change.

Please avoid giving any server top billing. If we’re going to be partners, we both need to be acknowledged so it doesn’t become a competition. Several guilds have left because of the behavior of our partner, the feeling that our server no longer matters, and the locked glicko; and I know of at least one other large guild that is contemplating leaving because of the server identity issues.

Personally, a few of my friends and I refer to the BLs by color instead of name. Adopting that policy would future proof any new pairings, and could also be accentuated with a few UI changes. Accentuate the house icon for home BL? Perhaps reserve a permanent spot in the UI for an individual account’s server?

Finally, could you please REMOVE the text that flashes when someone captures something? I find it quite obnoxious. Maybe other people don’t find it annoying.

Regarding toxicity of other players, you can’t solve that by covering your eyes and ears and running to another server/linked server. That’s an entirely different issue (and why you have “block” features). If the community was strong, these individuals would be ignored and the game will survive long beyond it without their negativity. Please don’t confuse WvW population imbalance with some secondary objective.

Here’s what I think will happen if you open up bunch of free servers and everything that you desire goes as planned and people move from high population to lower population. You’ll still have peaks and valleys in player activity levels a few weeks down the road.

I think this whole discussion (and survey) is inherently flawed. You can’t solve for population imbalance when at any point in time a player or a large group of players can up and leave. You can put a gem/gold wall in front of it to server transfer but in the end, there is virtually no loyalty other than the closest of player’s community (friends and guild mates). Designing any system ‘at the world server’ level is going to ultimately be broken.

What’s the flaw? Server transfers. Either build a WvW system around not caring about your server (think PvE map preference to put you in the match with your friends, guilds, contacts first) OR make the WvW matches much shorter (think sPvP tournaments but a much grander scale, ie. a three-hour increment (EoTM), and then use proper rewards structure, give bragging rights/titles, etc.) Caveat, separate (or equalize) the PUG vs premade guild…You join a WvW session as one guild, you queue and stay as that guild. You join as a PUG, you stay as the PUG (no guesting or moving during the match).

Ask yourselves, what has made the other WvW battle maps so popular in other MMOs? I know you all want to carve your own path but first solve for what is already known to work.

That and screw toxic players. Never build your ruleset to accomodate or work around them. Simply let the community handle that element.

What’s the point of keeping underpopulated worlds open and then developing ways to link them together?
Why not just close low pop worlds and offer free transfers from the closing servers to
targeted higher pop worlds?
The last thing WvW needs is even less world/server engagement.
WvW in GW2 is too much of a RvR lite mode as it is.
You already have EotM for the players that don’t really care about open world RvR or their server and simply want to join a random open map and fight.
Which brings me to the elaborate solution and how terrible I believe it will be.
You can’t destroy servers and their communities every few months.