Guild Wars 2

How about reserving the idea of breaking up population through migration to smaller worlds by instead leaving them on their current servers and increase the number of maps to play on through server linking?

I was reminded of it recently on another forum that shall not be named when this hypothetical server linking combo was sarcastically posted:

“New server links

FA/BG EU
MAG/BG OCX
JQ/BG NA
TC/BG SEA
YB/BG PVX guilds
"

A variation of this theme was posted here years ago when links by color were suggested, for example players in T1 red team could also play on red team in T3.

The new idea is that servers are linked with the new linking system, each server is in a separate match, and players on those servers have an expanded map selection UI.

What this does
- Opens ability for guilds to recruit from a larger pool without having to move anywhere
- Opens more choices to guilds on who they want to fight that night which decreases “stacking for fights” on a single server.
- Allows guild members on other servers a chance to play with their guild on a Full server.
- Restores linked server identity through separate matches; FABL and SORBL become separate maps, FA and SoR players would have home position on both maps, FA nameplates show as SoR in the SoR match, etc.
- Spreads out the population of Full servers by increasing number of maps to play on; I.e. players sitting in a queue for EB in one match can play in EB on another match. (And if you followed the sarcastic server links above, Full servers like BG would not have their own match.)

As in the past suggestion, you can even tie scoring to how well linked teams do across all their matches in order to provide incentive to players on the “stacked” server to help out on the other maps.

This is based around the old idea of opening World Guesting over the same colors right ? I’d definitively would like to try that, could be really interesting. Like the idea

+1

I think they kind of put the whole smaller worlds thingy to bed by opening those black floodgates for a week.

They’ll need to condense tiers now to give new bloatgate even a semblance of competition.

This doesnt balance anything though. T1 servers often have no queues on borders – meaning a T3 player on a loosing server can just join a winning T1 server and further skew the balance. Even if you only allow trickle down, we just dont have the population anymore to overflow.

So Factions with a single instance for all servers? No thanks.

Chaba.5410:

What this does
- Opens ability for guilds to recruit from a larger pool without having to move anywhere

Guilds recruiting red team players would have their roster split between 3 different teams when the servers get new colors at the next reset.

- Opens more choices to guilds on who they want to fight that night which decreases “stacking for fights” on a single server.

Nightcapping k-train would have not 4 but 28 maps to hop on to flip undefended objectives.

- Allows guild members on other servers a chance to play with their guild on a Full server.

Full servers do not need any more players.

- Restores linked server identity through separate matches; FABL and SORBL become separate maps, FA and SoR players would have home position on both maps, FA nameplates show as SoR in the SoR match, etc.

I agree linking destroys server identities. Getting rid of the linking is the way to go. However with factions you would not fight for your server but for 1/3 of all the servers. Identity is lost again.

- Spreads out the population of Full servers by increasing number of maps to play on; I.e. players sitting in a queue for EB in one match can play in EB on another match. (And if you followed the sarcastic server links above, Full servers like BG would not have their own match.)

Players on Full servers choose a map where they can blob up. They would not go to maps with only few other friendly players.

As in the past suggestion, you can even tie scoring to how well linked teams do across all their matches in order to provide incentive to players on the “stacked” server to help out on the other maps.

Score bias has its own issues and should not be introduced in WvW either.

Factions with single instance would lead to massive scale k-trains chewing their way through the maps. Like locust swarms eating through upgrades.

Smaller worlds would not be able to defend their home borderland against these multi-server karma-trains. So they won’t after finding it futile. Even the strong worlds would struggle under such pressure.

There is no incentive to defend other world’s home borderland. Strong worlds will not swoop to defend the weaker ones of their team.

joneirikb.7506:

This is based around the old idea of opening World Guesting over the same colors right ? I’d definitively would like to try that, could be really interesting. Like the idea

I’d prefer Players do World Guesting directly to any Server instead of color, but with limits to How Many & Which servers they can visit & fight on for the week.

Players are allowed to keep their Home Server membership.

Just sounds silly. On to the next idea!

Korgov.7645:

So Factions with a single instance for all servers? No thanks.

Chaba.5410:

What this does
- Opens ability for guilds to recruit from a larger pool without having to move anywhere

Guilds recruiting red team players would have their roster split between 3 different teams when the servers get new colors at the next reset.

You didn’t read. Teams would be linked by server links, not colors. Guilds are already split every two months with server links if members do not consolidate on a single server. This wouldn’t change that, but it would encourage guilds to consolidate on an open server if they know they will have greater choices in who they will be able to fight in the future because they won’t be locked to single match-ups.

- Opens more choices to guilds on who they want to fight that night which decreases “stacking for fights” on a single server.

Nightcapping k-train would have not 4 but 28 maps to hop on to flip undefended objectives.

- Allows guild members on other servers a chance to play with their guild on a Full server.

Full servers do not need any more players.

A full server could be made “match less” with players only being able to participate on linked server matches, thereby spreading them out.

- Restores linked server identity through separate matches; FABL and SORBL become separate maps, FA and SoR players would have home position on both maps, FA nameplates show as SoR in the SoR match, etc.

I agree linking destroys server identities. Getting rid of the linking is the way to go. However with factions you would not fight for your server but for 1/3 of all the servers. Identity is lost again.

- Spreads out the population of Full servers by increasing number of maps to play on; I.e. players sitting in a queue for EB in one match can play in EB on another match. (And if you followed the sarcastic server links above, Full servers like BG would not have their own match.)

Players on Full servers choose a map where they can blob up. They would not go to maps with only few other friendly players.

The counter to blob is splitting up. The blob can’t be everywhere. Having more everywhere is the balancing mechanism.

As in the past suggestion, you can even tie scoring to how well linked teams do across all their matches in order to provide incentive to players on the “stacked” server to help out on the other maps.

Score bias has its own issues and should not be introduced in WvW either.

Factions with single instance would lead to massive scale k-trains chewing their way through the maps. Like locust swarms eating through upgrades.

Smaller worlds would not be able to defend their home borderland against these multi-server karma-trains. So they won’t after finding it futile. Even the strong worlds would struggle under such pressure.

There is no incentive to defend other world’s home borderland. Strong worlds will not swoop to defend the weaker ones of their team.

- There would be no smaller worlds because server linking would make teams of roughly equal populace.
- Incentive to not leave another home borderland defenseless is provided by requiring a win in both matches in order to score victory points or something along those lines. But you simply wrote that idea off.
- Yes, even strong worlds would struggle under such pressure. That’s exactly the intent: to discourage stacking single servers and making them Full for wins.

Another method: Anet can simply throw a Full world without a link into a match against servers that have multiple links. I have every confidence in Anet’s ability to create super-teams where WvW population activity total of linked worlds is 200% and able to crush a single Full world.

So isnt this as the same a free bandwagon?
players would stack or try to stack into one server of that color all of the other server would become even more empty?
Another behaviour would be stack on the server where thet can ktrain empty servers.

Or did i miss anything?

Ah I misunderstood somewhat. So server link’s can “Guest” to each others fights.

Opens ability for guilds to recruit from a larger pool without having to move anywhere

You didn’t read. Teams would be linked by server links, not colors. Guilds are already split every two months with server links if members do not consolidate on a single server. This wouldn’t change that, but it would encourage guilds to consolidate on an open server if they know they will have greater choices in who they will be able to fight in the future because they won’t be locked to single match-ups.

In short not very different from now. But more options to play against different people if the full servers can split up and play mercenaries I guess. Not sure if I really see this one.

(And if you followed the sarcastic server links above, Full servers like BG would not have their own match.)

A full server could be made “match less” with players only being able to participate on linked server matches, thereby spreading them out.

So a full server would NOT get a own match-up or link, but is purely mercenary players for ALL other match-ups? Can’t imagine they would very fond of that.

- Restores linked server identity through separate matches; FABL and SORBL become separate maps, FA and SoR players would have home position on both maps, FA nameplates show as SoR in the SoR match, etc.

With the linking system as is, wouldn’t this create 3 EBG and 9 BL’s in the current T4 match-up. And 1,3 EBG and 4 BL’s in the current T2 match-up ? How will this handle match-up’s with different numbered links, and servers with no links? If next week T1 is BG+JQ+TC all with no links, they would be stuck on 1ebg 3bl’s ?

Chaba.5410:

Korgov.7645:

So Factions with a single instance for all servers? No thanks.

Chaba.5410:

What this does
- Opens ability for guilds to recruit from a larger pool without having to move anywhere

Guilds recruiting red team players would have their roster split between 3 different teams when the servers get new colors at the next reset.

You didn’t read. Teams would be linked by server links, not colors.

OK. So not linking all 4 tiers, but just 2 tiers on NA. The 2 new super tiers would have 8 maps of playable area having each team consisting of 4 servers on average linked together. For EU this would be trickier since there is only one Spanish world.

Anyways linking is bad. It erodes server identity, lowers fighting morale, removes competition, renders matchup victory and leaderboards meaningless, causes exodus from guest to host worlds, amplifies bandwagoning. It has positives too: more players on each matchup, more balanced teams, rebalancing every 2 months. But what’s the point with a balanced matchup when there is no reason to win?

If you create multiple wvw maps, wouldn’t that become eotm-ish, just without the ktrain. That wvw feeling is no more.

Split up BG or start a wvw season with reducing the player numbers per borderland.

Anet and the players created a mega server with as many “sleeping” wvw population as an active one.
With starting an wvw season the whole sleeping population would start playing again and queue times would be so ridiculous that players who want to play the season had to transfer to other servers.

the alternative is to split up BG into three separate servers or offer free transfers away from BG before closing the server entirely.
While at it, control the transfers to avoid stacking another server like BG.

You helped creating that mess, Anet. Now solve it and there won’t be a nice way to solve it.

Instead of just combining smaller server populations into one, I like this idea of forcing the overpopulated server onto all the other servers, at least until they destack to the level of the 5th server. Only have 3 matches with 9 teams. Also remove glicko.

Of course since the server in question has been known to “game” the system with their great community, you have to set up something that only lets 25 players at a time to select a world, and prioritize teams that have lower populations in the current match. Open up other choices as balance is reached.

SkyShroud.2865:

If you create multiple wvw maps, wouldn’t that become eotm-ish, just without the ktrain. That wvw feeling is no more.

That is a interesting tough, still it would deppend how the maps/server system would work and maps layout.

Lets say 3 servers only with 8 maps 3 are BL’s, one central, and 4 smaller amps are between bl the central map.

The work arround is not increase servers but to reduce and tweak/change the maps for more smaller ones, get guild interested in holding stuff, and interested of what rewards miugh come from other territory/castle/tower.
Figthing for ppt only its a dull system, since it never become something more interessant or better, no matter how rewards Anet introduces… the activity will be shorter than a LS life period.

If not this game is a pretty potato, with very por mechanics and interess.

Atm at wvw… even enemies bail atacking a tower if they see 1 defender….. so much fight this game has.