Guild Wars 2

I have a couple of accounts and I am seeing some noticeable differences in queues and maps depending on servers. After the world-linking, what are the new population totals? Is the population balance even now or skewed?

On one account the queues are terrible and i find myself sitting at a crafting table waiting for my queue to pop.
If the queues are too long, I will hop over to my other account and there are no queues and the maps are being blobbed down in over-whelming numbers.
Each scenario is equally non-enjoyable.

What’s the population status Anet?

I understand that a lot of transfers happened prior to the linking, from leaked info mostly. I see the forums riddled with ppl complaining about server stacking, etc.
Are the world-linking pairings going to be changed more frequently to reduce queue times for over populated server pairings?

I also understand that the change was to shake things up among the tiers, which seems to be working. Just curious about actual totals now…how do the numbers line up across the pairings now?

How are they supposed to balance the populations when people are free to move afterward? Sounds like a waste of time and resources. People will always server stack cause like to be able to jump in and play with people from there home world at anytime.

Then they need to think of a way to discourage stacking.
Every time ppl stack, you will lose some WvW population. In the long run, population imbalance slowly kills WvW.

of course they are not balanced. not enough time was allowed to take into account the significant population shift before the patch and the return of dormant players post patch.

Edit: and locking servers as full while making it cheaper to go to a guest? Maybe Chaba was right – they wanted to spread the population and then end the linking because it was beta….

What about adding limit to server transfers? For example you can transfer only once every 6 months. This would limit server stacking and help to balance populations.

Something must be changed with transfers, if we want to have balanced populations.

They should be able to track movement and modify the matchup to match. Right now TC and BG could have about 6 more servers put up against them.

As it is right now, 3 of the 4 matches are total lemons.

Are pairings locked in for a set time? I heard 3 months, but can’t confirm.

it will never be balanced through merger since population have been stacking on few particular servers over the years

to really balance something, u have to redistribute the population and enforce server full status dynamically by using multiple server’s (both highest and lowest) current population as reference. this will then truly create close-to-balanced population throughout all the servers

Of course they are not, and as long as they try to make the population adjust to the maps instead of the maps adjust to the population they never will be. All you accomplish by merging without having the maps adjust to the current population is ensure those that play during the busiest times do not get to play and are met with queues instead, and still having servers that do not have any coverage outside prime time being matched up with servers that do.

When most of the NA servers have NA prime coverage and only a disproportionate amount have coverage outside NA prime, you cannot balance the servers by merging servers that all have NA prime coverage. You would have to merge servers with off hour coverage with NA prime servers to resolve that.

lil devils x.6071:

Of course they are not, and as long as they try to make the population adjust to the maps instead of the maps adjust to the population they never will be. All you accomplish by merging without having the maps adjust to the current population is ensure those that play during the busiest times do not get to play and are met with queues instead, and still having servers that do not have any coverage outside prime time being matched up with servers that do.

When most of the NA servers have NA prime coverage and only a disproportionate amount have coverage outside NA prime, you cannot balance the servers by merging servers that all have NA prime coverage. You would have to merge servers with off hour coverage with NA prime servers to resolve that.

Totally agree with you on this. I don’t see what they were even trying to accomplish with the linking. Even if the linking served some greater purpose I don’t see, it appeared to be so simplistic and not even adjusted for the very significant population shift before/after the patch. Not to mention, if t8 people wanted blobs they had 3 years to move……

If you look at the PPT graphs, it’s clear the merges did nothing for population balance.

Short answer, NO.

Long answer, influx of more players does not means having more similiar population, it is a very unstable variable to take in for server population balance, and easy to manipulate from player side with so many player stacking servers for a more easy win.

The true issue is how WvW is ment to work it is extremmelly faulty , if players really want something done Anet would had to change how WvW works to an extent.

The linking probably server to show players, that merge servers would not be a bad idea, and it would not be.

SyLaR.3628:

What about adding limit to server transfers? For example you can transfer only once every 6 months. This would limit server stacking and help to balance populations.

Something must be changed with transfers, if we want to have balanced populations.

It’s not the transfers themselves that are even the problem; the problem is HARD CAPS, or lack thereof. People couldn’t transfer to STACK a server, IF there was a HARD cap in the first place…

That is what anet needs to fix. The system as it stands is broken and allows for people to stack.

They could make transfers FREE again, and make it so you could do as many as you want as often as you want IF they fixed the CORE problem; being able to stack a server in the first place.

They should make a single “PVE” server that doesn’t have a “cap”, then anyone who doesn’t wish to WVW could be “signed up” for that “server” (megaserver). Then they should set HARD caps on all the WVW “servers” and once they’re full, THEY’RE FULL; and completely LOCKED against ANYONE else being able to join that server. At any time of day and regardless of how many people are on or offline.

To account for people going inactive and people leaving the game mode or the game all together they could simply have an automated system in place to “send” an inactive player to the “PVE server” so that their “slot” opens up for someone else who WANTS to be active in WVW. “Inactive” would be determined by ANet; such examples include, 7 days, or 30 days. So, under my example, if a person didn’t log in and play WVW for X amount of days, they’d automatically be “kicked back” to the “PVE server” so that someone else could take their place (or unlock if the cap has already been reached) on that WVW server.

That would be the EASIEST way out; it really wouldn’t take a whole lot of effort on their part!

It would also solve the recruiting issues that go hand in hand with the situation because anyone you recruit would be able to transfer to your server (assuming it’s not full and locked) for FREE…

To further clarify:

I’m not saying to make any changes to PvE itself, even being on a “WvW server”; when you’re in PvE, you’d still be on the “megaserver” as they have it implemented currently. I’m basically saying make it separated on the WvW side. Make an “extra” or new “server” for (or even called) “PvE SERVER” – and those people wouldn’t be able to or wouldn’t have a WvW. If you want to WvW you transfer to one of the already existing 24 servers, which would have HARD caps. If they’re full, sorry (no more stacking)! To account for when people stop playing (for whatever reason or however long over the threshold) they automatically get “kicked back” to the “PVE server” so that someone that WANTS to WvW can take their “slot”…

SIMPLE solution!