Guild Wars 2

Arius.7031:

And they wouldn’t have been able to drain so much glicko from t2 servers if they hadn’t been so overstacked,

Honestly, have you been to t1 recently? Its nowhere near as stacked as you make it out to be. Like I said earlier, t2 scored more points during the ppk event, which one could conclude means that either t2 players die a lot more on average, or theres just a lot more people in t2 to begin with.

http://youtu.be/7EnWFmTQjb0?t=6m20s

This video is a few months old (and theres been an increase in population since then due to PPK event, expansion announcement, gw2 pricedrop, holidays, etc), and its before the PPK event, but you can see the major guild leaders talking about how there weren’t even 4 queues on reset for JQ and BG. I remember soloing a keep on my guardian on reset night during the PPK event.

Also, look at mos. T1 has consistently had ~2100 rating and T2 ~1900 rating since records started to be kept. The reason for this is a byproduct of how the flawed glicko system was designed, it’s been a problem since launch, it’s something Anet should know about, and it’s something the players can’t really do much about.

henchmen.1856:

Arius.7031:

- Idk what you think lower pop servers look like. My server can easily field a 50+ zerg in EB in EU, and then havoc/roamers here and there. We usually get 20-50 pugs on tag in SEA, then 1-3 guild groups fielding 10+ depending on if son/sot run (sotd always runs). OCX we’re ded sevr and we can still do 30+ on tag + havoc and 1 guild group lol. This is all assuming a tag ofc, it can get quite dead otherwise. It may not be the massive pop you’re used to, but it’s far from dead.

As someone who has recently been on dh I can say that this is completely false. Never saw a 50+ zerg during eu timezone. I saw zergs but never that big and all not on teamspeak and many uplevels. You know, those zergs made up of casual pve’ers that you see on every server. Ocx was completely barren wasteland. Sea time same as eu, lots of uplevel pugs not on teamspeak.

I’ve played in high and low tier servers and if the numbers this guy claims is true then dh would have been in tier 2 a loooooooooong time ago.

Your post history says you were looking for a new server back in early september. How long has it been since you’re on Dh? Do you realize we’ve received somewhere in the order of 15-20 guild transfers (including multiple daily raiding full zerg busting guilds) and a host of pugs since then? We received a ton of transfers within the past 3 weeks. A few matchups ago we lost to SBI twice in a row, last matchup we beat them by 40k. We’ve grown a ton, not only in semi-recent history, but within the past few weeks (we received two guilds like 3 days ago even lol).

Also we have a daily raiding SEA fights guild, how can you say we just have pugs who don’t get in ts? You don’t know what you’re talking about lol. I ain’t even including when sotd and son run.

fishball.7204:

11pm and 6am PST aren’t OCX.

And I said nothing about SEA, plenty of servers have SEA including SBI, CD, DH and others.

11pm is close to ocx, close enough that it gives you an idea of what we’ll be running in ocx. If there’s been a consistent com (which is a fairly big if) through late NA and into OCX, we will have decent numbers (though not massive, ocx is our weakspot). We have one guild that raids early OCX [OdM] and a few regular pugmanders. We can struggle to field numbers if there’s been no consistent tag, then you’ll see a really ded ocx from Dh. Otherwise, ocx I have seen field 30+ on many occasions. We’d have to field that much to survive SBI’s ocx lol.

Arius.7031:

henchmen.1856:

Arius.7031:

- Idk what you think lower pop servers look like. My server can easily field a 50+ zerg in EB in EU, and then havoc/roamers here and there. We usually get 20-50 pugs on tag in SEA, then 1-3 guild groups fielding 10+ depending on if son/sot run (sotd always runs). OCX we’re ded sevr and we can still do 30+ on tag + havoc and 1 guild group lol. This is all assuming a tag ofc, it can get quite dead otherwise. It may not be the massive pop you’re used to, but it’s far from dead.

As someone who has recently been on dh I can say that this is completely false. Never saw a 50+ zerg during eu timezone. I saw zergs but never that big and all not on teamspeak and many uplevels. You know, those zergs made up of casual pve’ers that you see on every server. Ocx was completely barren wasteland. Sea time same as eu, lots of uplevel pugs not on teamspeak.

I’ve played in high and low tier servers and if the numbers this guy claims is true then dh would have been in tier 2 a loooooooooong time ago.

Your post history says you were looking for a new server back in early september. How long has it been since you’re on Dh? Do you realize we’ve received somewhere in the order of 15-20 guild transfers (including multiple daily raiding full zerg busting guilds) and a host of pugs since then? We received a ton of transfers within the past 3 weeks. A few matchups ago we lost to SBI twice in a row, last matchup we beat them by 40k. We’ve grown a ton, not only in semi-recent history, but within the past few weeks (we received two guilds like 3 days ago even lol).

Also we have a daily raiding SEA fights guild, how can you say we just have pugs who don’t get in ts? You don’t know what you’re talking about lol. I ain’t even including when sotd and son run.

I was on dh from December until end of Jan and was there during early 2014 as well. I never said you didn’t have a sea raiding guild. I just said the pugs were bad (don’t worry not just on dh). And those numbers, I didn’t see it. Sorry.

henchmen.1856:

Arius.7031:

henchmen.1856:

Arius.7031:

- Idk what you think lower pop servers look like. My server can easily field a 50+ zerg in EB in EU, and then havoc/roamers here and there. We usually get 20-50 pugs on tag in SEA, then 1-3 guild groups fielding 10+ depending on if son/sot run (sotd always runs). OCX we’re ded sevr and we can still do 30+ on tag + havoc and 1 guild group lol. This is all assuming a tag ofc, it can get quite dead otherwise. It may not be the massive pop you’re used to, but it’s far from dead.

As someone who has recently been on dh I can say that this is completely false. Never saw a 50+ zerg during eu timezone. I saw zergs but never that big and all not on teamspeak and many uplevels. You know, those zergs made up of casual pve’ers that you see on every server. Ocx was completely barren wasteland. Sea time same as eu, lots of uplevel pugs not on teamspeak.

I’ve played in high and low tier servers and if the numbers this guy claims is true then dh would have been in tier 2 a loooooooooong time ago.

Your post history says you were looking for a new server back in early september. How long has it been since you’re on Dh? Do you realize we’ve received somewhere in the order of 15-20 guild transfers (including multiple daily raiding full zerg busting guilds) and a host of pugs since then? We received a ton of transfers within the past 3 weeks. A few matchups ago we lost to SBI twice in a row, last matchup we beat them by 40k. We’ve grown a ton, not only in semi-recent history, but within the past few weeks (we received two guilds like 3 days ago even lol).

Also we have a daily raiding SEA fights guild, how can you say we just have pugs who don’t get in ts? You don’t know what you’re talking about lol. I ain’t even including when sotd and son run.

I was on dh from December until end of Jan and was there during early 2014 as well. I never said you didn’t have a sea raiding guild. I just said the pugs were bad (don’t worry not just on dh). And those numbers, I didn’t see it. Sorry.

Ah I see, all good. Hope you enjoy your new server more than you did Dh.

For 2 Billion Million Dollars i will convince everyone on JQ to transfer to your server.

Server loyalty doesn’t exist in WvW, Guilds/players can simply transfer around as they wish without consequences, apart from Gold/Gems they need to spend to transfer.

People can’t think logically in this game due to Server politics and ego, especially Community – GvG and PPT.

Chaba.5410:

1- Have you tried to GvG in EOTM? It is done sometimes but the area that supports it is trolled by auto-spawning cannons.

No. GvG has to be the single most boring thing in the game, and I’m glad it didn’t come about at the hands of ANet. But all it needs is a space – people use the OS and, back when I had to do it, the plateau by the windmill on the BLs. Not every suitable space on EotM has cannons, so why insist on doing it there?

Chaba.5410:

2- IDK why you say there’s no destacking. Where do you think all the players that went to Maguuma came from?

You think that destacking means “everybody who is changing servers all go to one place”?

Chaba.5410:

3- No, no GvG mode anytime soon. It is no more pointless to suggest than destacking is. Players don’t care about balance because they mistake stability for balance. How many guilds did you talk to that are interested in transferring or have transferred somewhere else? Have you asked them why they made the server choice they did? I have. Time and time again “stability” is the answer. Players don’t like to transfer to a server that is at risk of falling out of a tier or leaving them high and dry.

I have to interview a high percentage of the guilds that exist in the game? No, I didn’t do that. But players leaving or transferring to a server en masse have caused far more instability than they’ve ever cured, so stemming or stopping that particular problem and taking steps to reverse it as much as possible seems to be a good idea, don’t you think?

Arius.7031:

etrigan.4213:

No his post is crap, he’s basically blaming players for wanting to play with other like minded people.

Like how is it on the shoulders of the end user to fix servers they may have never been on?

There was imbalance at the launch of the game and there is imbalance now. Was it the players fault that there was imbalance and coverage problems in August 2012?

Not one mention of ANET having an unbalanced pvp game mode.

Deny one bit of reasoning used in my post. Bro, you don’t seem to realize, WvW does not have to be as messed up as it is. Look at EU, the rank 5 server is beating the rank 1 server. The top 6 servers are all within 120 glicko of each other rofl. There’s amazing matchup variety because they didn’t successfully overstack 2 groups of servers (tier 1/2 in our case were heavily over stacked, t1 especially).

I couldn’t care less if you personally prefer to play in tier 1 or tier 2, your preference is unimportant to the discussion, it’s irrelevant. Don’t assume that if you’re in a bad situation, you can just do w/e you want and it doesn’t change anything cus bad situation. Pro tip, you can in fact make bad situations worse. Tier 2 made bad situations worse for half a dozen silver servers, who have to worry about getting unluckily rolled into tier 3 to get beat up on by an over stacked blob server for a week (or in the case of IoJ, 3 months now?)

What you, or anyone else want to do does not mean that it’s a smart choice for the overall game. Sure, by all means, make the game more enjoyable for yourself! I fully support you in that decision, as games are understandably fundamentally selfish pursuits. In the end though it means absolutely nothing, because what you’re doing is STILL bad for the overall game, no matter what you want. A good desire doesn’t mean your choice won’t have bad effects. Have fun on your stacked server, to each his own, but anyone who moves to your stacked server is just making the game we all play worse in the grand scheme of things, making a bad situation worse.

This! +1

All the pr talk about t2 t1 community is just that, pr. At this point every server in t1/t2 is a brainless queue obsessed guild buying atrocity. Are they forced to stack to keep their server stable? Maybe. But it changes nothing in the long term. Stacking servers leads to long term dmg to the game. We can all spew made up pr talk about fite guilds, ocx fun playing, communities, etc. The reality is that every server has fun communities , as well as its fairweathers, its trolls, its pvper, its pvers . etc. Every server has coverage compared to servers weaker than it is. At least EU is fun to play on.

Dream In A Dream.7213:

Stacking servers leads to long term dmg to the game.

Players quitting leads to long term damage to the game. Stop blaming a coping mechanism.

Chaba.5410:

Dream In A Dream.7213:

Stacking servers leads to long term dmg to the game.

Players quitting leads to long term damage to the game. Stop blaming a coping mechanism.

Why shouldn’t we blame something that is also damaging the game? People quitting damages it. People stacking damages it. They both damage it.

Rimmy.9217:

Chaba.5410:

1- Have you tried to GvG in EOTM? It is done sometimes but the area that supports it is trolled by auto-spawning cannons.

No. GvG has to be the single most boring thing in the game, and I’m glad it didn’t come about at the hands of ANet. But all it needs is a space – people use the OS and, back when I had to do it, the plateau by the windmill on the BLs. Not every suitable space on EotM has cannons, so why insist on doing it there?

If you’ve been out of the GvG scene for that long and haven’t followed the meta, you really don’t understand then why the windmill is now considered a terrible place for it, which explains also your EOTM suggestion. In other words, your suggestion may seem like a solution, but it isn’t.

Rimmy.9217:

Chaba.5410:

2- IDK why you say there’s no destacking. Where do you think all the players that went to Maguuma came from?

You think that destacking means “everybody who is changing servers all go to one place”?

Either you’re calling for players to “destack” from higher tiers or you’re calling for players to “destack” from a single server in a tier. If you need evidence of “destacking” in a tier, my own server did that for Season 2 so we wouldn’t roflstomp Silver. SoS is doing that now. Will they be able to destack enough? Probably not because they have quite a large population of OCX players that are PVE/PVX who don’t see any need to destack. Are their destacking players going to other T3 server? No because those players have a loyalty to the population/activity in T2. Several of their guilds went to T1 even.

Rimmy.9217:

Chaba.5410:

3- No, no GvG mode anytime soon. It is no more pointless to suggest than destacking is. Players don’t care about balance because they mistake stability for balance. How many guilds did you talk to that are interested in transferring or have transferred somewhere else? Have you asked them why they made the server choice they did? I have. Time and time again “stability” is the answer. Players don’t like to transfer to a server that is at risk of falling out of a tier or leaving them high and dry.

I have to interview a high percentage of the guilds that exist in the game? No, I didn’t do that. But players leaving or transferring to a server en masse have caused far more instability than they’ve ever cured, so stemming or stopping that particular problem and taking steps to reverse it as much as possible seems to be a good idea, don’t you think?

So you have only ever observed the symptom from afar, never bothered to investigate, and jump to some conclusion. How are you ever going to be able to take steps to stem or stop this issue if you don’t know what causes it?! If you can’t identify the root causes, any actions or suggestions you take could be like taking a swing at a foul ball. You miss something you never had a chance of hitting anyway.

Arius.7031:

Chaba.5410:

Dream In A Dream.7213:

Stacking servers leads to long term dmg to the game.

Players quitting leads to long term damage to the game. Stop blaming a coping mechanism.

Why shouldn’t we blame something that is also damaging the game? People quitting damages it. People stacking damages it. They both damage it.

You’re missing the point about player movement being a coping mechanism. This isn’t a static environment. Whether players stack or destack, there will still be players quitting and causing “holes” that lead to imbalanced match ups. Players will then move again to cope with that. If all of T1 and T2 were to destack and spread the population out evenly to all 24 servers, the holes will start showing up again and players will start moving again. If all the lower tier servers stacked into T1-3 or T1-4 even, holes still start appearing again. Which version of events will result in players playing longer though? IMHO it is the version where there is enough population, a higher population, that will tough it out longer because attrition won’t be as noticeable as it is with a lower population.

Chaba.5410:

If you’ve been out of the GvG scene for that long and haven’t followed the meta, you really don’t understand then why the windmill is now considered a terrible place for it, which explains also your EOTM suggestion. In other words, your suggestion may seem like a solution, but it isn’t.

I still see people using the windmill. You know your tier isn’t the only place that people GvG, right? That whatever culture your server or your tier uses isn’t the only one, right? And I wasn’t offering a solution – that people want to get together in the game and do something that is possible in the game but isn’t specifically supported isn’t a problem to be solved.

Chaba.5410:

Either you’re calling for players to “destack” from higher tiers or you’re calling for players to “destack” from a single server in a tier. If you need evidence of “destacking” in a tier, my own server did that for Season 2 so we wouldn’t roflstomp Silver. SoS is doing that now. Will they be able to destack enough? Probably not because they have quite a large population of OCX players that are PVE/PVX who don’t see any need to destack. Are their destacking players going to other T3 server? No because those players have a loyalty to the population/activity in T2. Several of their guilds went to T1 even.

The former, not the latter. If/when ANet lowers the WvW map population caps, destacking from overstacked servers will happen – at least by people who still want to play. And destacking can only happen downward – transferring up is stacking.

Chaba.5410:

So you have only ever observed the symptom from afar, never bothered to investigate, and jump to some conclusion. How are you ever going to be able to take steps to stem or stop this issue if you don’t know what causes it?! If you can’t identify the root causes, any actions or suggestions you take could be like taking a swing at a foul ball. You miss something you never had a chance of hitting anyway.

Don’t know where you got “from afar” from, not sure how not personally interviewing a significant percent of the guilds in the game equates to “never bothered to investigate”, nor how I’m jumping to conclusions. The fallback to ad hominem “points” really undermines the undermining of my argument, frankly. The root causes are obvious and have been stated by both me and many others, across a wide number of threads. Discounting them doesn’t make them a mystery.

now people, I just skimmed through the 3 pages and if a guild wants to leave because say they’re not enjoying their current environment, why the hell not?

@ Arius

Didn’t say T3/4 are dead and I’m sure it’s a real hoot at points but not when I play so it does not matter to me and the people I play with. Why would I be concerned with what happens when and where I’m not playing? And I see you still compare NA to EU as if there aren’t real differences.

You keep making non-points and tossing around the idea of “destacking”. When populations change due to patches/expansions/new games/general staleness/real life stuff etc, what magical method will be used to “destack” or balance, again and again and again? I’ve yet to hear a reasonable method. It’s like you’re arguing for the sake of arguing.

“Lol, sorry you don’t like people telling you what you did was bad for the game, but I’m not here to make you feel good. I think it’s a perfectly fine thing to ruin the game for others and make it bad for the majority by making a selfish decision, again, games are fundamentally selfish pursuits. If you want to be selfless, that’s great and reflects good on your character, but being selfish is perfectly acceptable. That doesn’t change the fact that your decisions can damage the game, especially the selfish ones.”

/facepalm
But you suggest people sacrifice what they’re looking to get out of the game for your sake. The irony.

gennyt.3428:

@ Arius
/facepalm
But you suggest people sacrifice what they’re looking to get out of the game for your sake. The irony.

This sums up the destacking argument and the server merging argument. I don’t like how you play, it’s not the way I play, you should be forced to play the way I like.

People aren’t having fun, something should be done about it. The fast and easy solution is nothing. Let the players sort it out themselves. They could aid this with free transfers. It’s not the best solution, it might be the worst solution, but at least it’s something. /shrugs

Rimmy.9217:

Don’t know where you got “from afar” from, not sure how not personally interviewing a significant percent of the guilds in the game equates to “never bothered to investigate”, nor how I’m jumping to conclusions. The fallback to ad hominem “points” really undermines the undermining of my argument, frankly. The root causes are obvious and have been stated by both me and many others, across a wide number of threads. Discounting them doesn’t make them a mystery.

The Sun revolves around the Earth. It’s so obvious. </sarcasm>

If you’re not talking to guilds as to why they are moving or why they picked the server they did, then you really don’t know what you’re talking about, just offering a belief as a statement of fact. That isn’t an ad hominem. That’s just basic root cause analysis that you are not doing.

The most widely stated reason given to me for why guilds pick the server they do is “stability”. They are looking for server stability. That doesn’t always equate tier balance unfortunately. If Anet could somehow provide better stability to servers, maybe through more predictable match-making, it may help to stem players from leaving. But Anet can’t be solving instability caused by drama between guilds and players on each server.

Chaba.5410:

Rimmy.9217:

Don’t know where you got “from afar” from, not sure how not personally interviewing a significant percent of the guilds in the game equates to “never bothered to investigate”, nor how I’m jumping to conclusions. The fallback to ad hominem “points” really undermines the undermining of my argument, frankly. The root causes are obvious and have been stated by both me and many others, across a wide number of threads. Discounting them doesn’t make them a mystery.

The Sun revolves around the Earth. It’s so obvious. </sarcasm>

If you’re not talking to guilds as to why they are moving or why they picked the server they did, then you really don’t know what you’re talking about, just offering a belief as a statement of fact. That isn’t an ad hominem. That’s just basic root cause analysis that you are not doing.

This is what you said:

Chaba.5410:

3- No, no GvG mode anytime soon. It is no more pointless to suggest than destacking is. Players don’t care about balance because they mistake stability for balance. How many guilds did you talk to that are interested in transferring or have transferred somewhere else? Have you asked them why they made the server choice they did? I have. Time and time again “stability” is the answer. Players don’t like to transfer to a server that is at risk of falling out of a tier or leaving them high and dry.

I never said I didn’t speak to any, or was a part of any. What I said was “I had to ask a significant percentage of all of the guilds that exist in GW2” in order to speak? Don’t think so, and you haven’t either. And no, I can’t give you a count.

Everyone is allowed to enjoy the game the way they want to. So obviously the majority of players enjoy playing in an active environment where they can get fights in rapid succession.

Good luck getting people to destack. Never going to happen. It’s like asking guilds to go have less fights. No thanks.

I can’t believe Anet have the gall to make another CDI post in here.

You know what the problems are, pick a solution and implement it already.

Rimmy.9217:

I never said I didn’t speak to any, or was a part of any. What I said was “I had to ask a significant percentage of all of the guilds that exist in GW2” in order to speak? Don’t think so, and you haven’t either. And no, I can’t give you a count.

I asked if you have ever spoken to the guilds that are interested in transferring or have transferred and how many. You didn’t answer. Notice that I use a lot of conditional phrases in my reply. For example, “If you’re not talking to guilds as to why they are moving or why they picked the server they did, then you really don’t know what you’re talking about”. So I don’t care that you can speak your opinion on the matter. Everyone has an opinion. I prefer that you are able to at least speak with an informed opinion and indicate such.

Deli.1302:

Everyone is allowed to enjoy the game the way they want to. So obviously the majority of players enjoy playing in an active environment where they can get fights in rapid succession.

The general trend for 2+ years has been to transfer to higher tiers. The only time that there has been mass transfers to lower tiers was during the Kaineng bandwagon and the HoD bandwagon. Those were free transfers. They were also both disastrous.

Wow, this was going on all weekend? I guess some people have relationships and others have poopsocks to cuddle. lol

They’re not going to destack from T2 since most of them are paid for and will be seen as scammers if they left now. You’d have to continually beat them into submission until people sneak off to a new server face to hide behind.

Chaba has already said it before, nobody cares about balance. All that matters is throwing bigger blobs to suppress all other tiers/servers.

Chaba.5410:

Deli.1302:

Everyone is allowed to enjoy the game the way they want to. So obviously the majority of players enjoy playing in an active environment where they can get fights in rapid succession.

The general trend for 2+ years has been to transfer to higher tiers. The only time that there has been mass transfers to lower tiers was during the Kaineng bandwagon and the HoD bandwagon. Those were free transfers. They were also both disastrous.

Yup. They tried to do that with RoS and then with Blacktide too but all the guilds left and transferred back up eventually. And those servers were left drained off all recruitment potential and even native guilds followed suit and transferred off. So anyone suggesting guilds from high tier servers transfer down to theirs does not realize how much harm will happen to their server. I can guarantee that if the Kaineng bandwagon never happened, Kaineng would be a much higher tiered server now.

Deli.1302:

Chaba.5410:

Deli.1302:

Everyone is allowed to enjoy the game the way they want to. So obviously the majority of players enjoy playing in an active environment where they can get fights in rapid succession.

The general trend for 2+ years has been to transfer to higher tiers. The only time that there has been mass transfers to lower tiers was during the Kaineng bandwagon and the HoD bandwagon. Those were free transfers. They were also both disastrous.

Yup. They tried to do that with RoS and then with Blacktide too but all the guilds left and transferred back up eventually. And those servers were left drained off all recruitment potential and even native guilds followed suit and transferred off. So anyone suggesting guilds from high tier servers transfer down to theirs does not realize how much harm will happen to their server. I can guarantee that if the Kaineng bandwagon never happened, Kaineng would be a much higher tiered server now.

Bandwagoning, whether down or up, is always bad. You can’t make the jump from “these instances of destacking are bad, therefore all are bad/are probably bad”. That leap cannot be made. We have bad examples of destacking, because they were done in bad ways. Then again, what about all the servers that have risen out of bronze to silver successfully? Why are you ignoring those (Dh/IoJ/HoD/EBay/NSP)? Also, kaineng was rank 24 server until an initiative to stack it that was pretty popular on the forums back near launch. I have no idea why you think Kaineng would be higher than they are if the bandwagon hadn’t happened, they were dead last lol.

gennyt.3428:

@ Arius

Didn’t say T3/4 are dead and I’m sure it’s a real hoot at points but not when I play so it does not matter to me and the people I play with. Why would I be concerned with what happens when and where I’m not playing? And I see you still compare NA to EU as if there aren’t real differences.

You should be concerned because the lower the overall pop of the game the worse the game does overall. Less money for ANet, less people in WvW, less possible transfers to your precious tier, less guilds to fight, etc etc… A healthy overall WvW benefits ALL WvW servers. It’s been brought up by many people on YOUR side of the debate that overall population getting lower is what caused the whole stacking issue in the first place lel.

You keep making non-points and tossing around the idea of “destacking”. When populations change due to patches/expansions/new games/general staleness/real life stuff etc, what magical method will be used to “destack” or balance, again and again and again? I’ve yet to hear a reasonable method. It’s like you’re arguing for the sake of arguing.

What non-points are you referring to? I can hand wave your entire post as a non-point as well, and if you continue to do so to me, I’ll return the favor gladly.

I didn’t say we actually SHOULD destack, it’s not a realistic possibility. Y’all are too convinced the game is ded in off hours on every server outside of t2, that there’s no fun to be had. You’re wrong, of course, but you think so regardless. You will not destacking except by the natural rising/falling of servers that occurs. This whole conversation started as how stupid it was to stack in the first place, it was never intended to be an actual conversation on what we should actually do. If you don’t like that, sorry that you don’t like thinking and discussing difficult topics. Don’t read this thread if you’re so opposed.

“Lol, sorry you don’t like people telling you what you did was bad for the game, but I’m not here to make you feel good. I think it’s a perfectly fine thing to ruin the game for others and make it bad for the majority by making a selfish decision, again, games are fundamentally selfish pursuits. If you want to be selfless, that’s great and reflects good on your character, but being selfish is perfectly acceptable. That doesn’t change the fact that your decisions can damage the game, especially the selfish ones.”

/facepalm
But you suggest people sacrifice what they’re looking to get out of the game for your sake. The irony.

I’m not suggesting that. It would be good, but it would never actually happen. Y’all don’t care about anyone else playing in different tier, that much is obvious, it’ll never happen. You’ll keep screwing all of us over day in and day out, not giving a second’s thought to it. So no, I’m not suggesting that you destack, I know all too well that you guys won’t destack willingly. Again, the conversation was originally about how stupid it was in the beginning to stack, and then hypothetically what would be the optimum player-driven solution, nobody holds any hopes that y’all will care about the game and actually do something about it. We know you won’t.

Forced server migration will not work – I’ve been on my server since I started playing 2 years ago. My guild has been established for nearly that long. Why should I be forced to move? Because my server is T2? And where am I being forced to move to? T5?!
Will Anet reimburse the cost that players forked out to move when they are forced to migrate to another server?
Should Anet say any players in the last ## months that have moved will be moved back to the server they started on? That seems unfair. So how do you find these “cheaters” and restore balance?
You can’t.

Deamhan.9538:

With the mega server, it doesn’t matter what server you are on for PvE and PvP. It only matters to WvW.

Unless you are in a PVE, and PVP only guild, it matters. It’s quite uncomfortable, to say the least, when your guildmates are enemies on an opposing server. This is especially true if they have access to items in the bank which could help them defeat you, as well as access to all the buffs curently running.

Rimmy.9217:

Chaba.5410:

If you’ve been out of the GvG scene for that long and haven’t followed the meta, you really don’t understand then why the windmill is now considered a terrible place for it, which explains also your EOTM suggestion. In other words, your suggestion may seem like a solution, but it isn’t.

I still see people using the windmill. You know your tier isn’t the only place that people GvG, right? That whatever culture your server or your tier uses isn’t the only one, right? And I wasn’t offering a solution – that people want to get together in the game and do something that is possible in the game but isn’t specifically supported isn’t a problem to be solved.

Yes, it actually is a problem to be solved. We have OS for GvGs. Otherwise, it creates queues for players who desire to fight for territory. It quite literally violates the ToS as well.

Chaba.5410:

The most widely stated reason given to me for why guilds pick the server they do is “stability”. They are looking for server stability. That doesn’t always equate tier balance unfortunately. If Anet could somehow provide better stability to servers, maybe through more predictable match-making, it may help to stem players from leaving. But Anet can’t be solving instability caused by drama between guilds and players on each server.

The most widely reason I see is:

A. We have been here since launch.

B. As with most MMOs, over time friends and guildies quit. I met some folks in PvE and they were on a different server, so I moved.

You really should put all your eggs in one basket in that your “experience” with very few guilds suggest they prefer stability. Unless you have a reason to believe you have spoken to more then half of the players on all 48+ NA and EU servers, and the China servers, then you have in no way, even remotely touched upon the majority.

Arius.7031:

Deli.1302:

Chaba.5410:

Deli.1302:

Everyone is allowed to enjoy the game the way they want to. So obviously the majority of players enjoy playing in an active environment where they can get fights in rapid succession.

The general trend for 2+ years has been to transfer to higher tiers. The only time that there has been mass transfers to lower tiers was during the Kaineng bandwagon and the HoD bandwagon. Those were free transfers. They were also both disastrous.

Yup. They tried to do that with RoS and then with Blacktide too but all the guilds left and transferred back up eventually. And those servers were left drained off all recruitment potential and even native guilds followed suit and transferred off. So anyone suggesting guilds from high tier servers transfer down to theirs does not realize how much harm will happen to their server. I can guarantee that if the Kaineng bandwagon never happened, Kaineng would be a much higher tiered server now.

Bandwagoning, whether down or up, is always bad. You can’t make the jump from “these instances of destacking are bad, therefore all are bad/are probably bad”. That leap cannot be made. We have bad examples of destacking, because they were done in bad ways. Then again, what about all the servers that have risen out of bronze to silver successfully? Why are you ignoring those (Dh/IoJ/HoD/EBay/NSP)? Also, kaineng was rank 24 server until an initiative to stack it that was pretty popular on the forums back near launch. I have no idea why you think Kaineng would be higher than they are if the bandwagon hadn’t happened, they were dead last lol.

Most of those servers rose up because others around it died/imploded and I’m pretty sure attrition had something to do with it.

Deli.1302:

Arius.7031:

Deli.1302:

Chaba.5410:

Deli.1302:

Everyone is allowed to enjoy the game the way they want to. So obviously the majority of players enjoy playing in an active environment where they can get fights in rapid succession.

The general trend for 2+ years has been to transfer to higher tiers. The only time that there has been mass transfers to lower tiers was during the Kaineng bandwagon and the HoD bandwagon. Those were free transfers. They were also both disastrous.

Yup. They tried to do that with RoS and then with Blacktide too but all the guilds left and transferred back up eventually. And those servers were left drained off all recruitment potential and even native guilds followed suit and transferred off. So anyone suggesting guilds from high tier servers transfer down to theirs does not realize how much harm will happen to their server. I can guarantee that if the Kaineng bandwagon never happened, Kaineng would be a much higher tiered server now.

Bandwagoning, whether down or up, is always bad. You can’t make the jump from “these instances of destacking are bad, therefore all are bad/are probably bad”. That leap cannot be made. We have bad examples of destacking, because they were done in bad ways. Then again, what about all the servers that have risen out of bronze to silver successfully? Why are you ignoring those (Dh/IoJ/HoD/EBay/NSP)? Also, kaineng was rank 24 server until an initiative to stack it that was pretty popular on the forums back near launch. I have no idea why you think Kaineng would be higher than they are if the bandwagon hadn’t happened, they were dead last lol.

Most of those servers rose up because others around it died/imploded and I’m pretty sure attrition had something to do with it.

Although I want to point out, it is not simply a matter of players “stacking”. To a very very large extent, it is likely that the natural progression of MMOs, in which the population often declines over time, left an innate imbalance aspect as well. It is also one reason for initial imbalances.

Arius.7031:

Why are you ignoring those (Dh/IoJ/HoD/EBay/NSP)?

I don’t know much about WvW since I’m new, but I do know that the guilds that left my server transferred to two of those listed servers. In fact one of them is allegedly buying guilds from us and other lower ranked servers. I strongly doubt they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. I imagine they are all mini band wagon servers, for people who don’t want to go beyond tier 3 and still want that small server feel. If I was to leave my server, it would be to ride their coattails to victory, not to go for tier 1 or 2.

At the moment though, I’m just waiting for thing to stabilize before I make a final judgement call. At the moment tier 3 to 7 look pretty rough with unbalanced match ups of varying degrees. Even tier 2 seems to be suffering a bit. Just look at those scores! What a terrible mess and a terrible time to join the GW2 WvW community. The only tiers that seem to have balanced matching is tier 1 and 8.

http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups

There are servers that actively go out and look for transfers, this is true.

Being on FA, we’ve received and we’ve lost guilds. It didn’t really matter whether or not we paid for them.

When we absorbed IoJ’s OCX guilds the first time, it wasn’t because we paid them, or went after them. My guild was FA’s OCX, we were pretty much all it had during that time. We didn’t have enough to beat Crystal Desert, but neither did IoJ. Eventually leaders from IoJ’s OCX started asking us about FA. Those guilds later had a meeting and eventually decided to move over to FA. We didn’t have gold to offer them, but they felt that FA had good players, but just didn’t have the numbers to stay competitive.

What I learned from that was that people burn out. The IoJ guilds for one reason or another didn’t want to be on that server anymore and together as a community decided that moving was the best option for their guilds. With FA having an established community and a large guild like mine already covering a time zone that those guilds played in, it meant for them that they could play without worrying about having to carry the server because of a weak time zone or an unstable community.

At the end of the day, people are going to do what they feel is best for their guild. When FA got stuck in leagues and was getting smashed by HoD from their huge bandwagon period, it was really bad. FA got really bad. Everyone was burned out, morale was low, the community was shaky at best, and my guild, being one of the largest at the time, was seriously considering leaving since our play style did not reflect what was possible during that period. If we reached out to another server and they were willing to accept us, no matter if the transfer was paid for or not, we probably would have moved.

This happens everywhere, not just FA, tier 1, tier 2, or so on. It really doesn’t matter if you “buy” guilds, chances are, those guilds would have left for their own reasons eventually. Paying for them just makes it easier for everyone, but that doesn’t make it an easy decision either.

Deli.1302:

Arius.7031:

Deli.1302:

Chaba.5410:

Deli.1302:

Everyone is allowed to enjoy the game the way they want to. So obviously the majority of players enjoy playing in an active environment where they can get fights in rapid succession.

The general trend for 2+ years has been to transfer to higher tiers. The only time that there has been mass transfers to lower tiers was during the Kaineng bandwagon and the HoD bandwagon. Those were free transfers. They were also both disastrous.

Yup. They tried to do that with RoS and then with Blacktide too but all the guilds left and transferred back up eventually. And those servers were left drained off all recruitment potential and even native guilds followed suit and transferred off. So anyone suggesting guilds from high tier servers transfer down to theirs does not realize how much harm will happen to their server. I can guarantee that if the Kaineng bandwagon never happened, Kaineng would be a much higher tiered server now.

Bandwagoning, whether down or up, is always bad. You can’t make the jump from “these instances of destacking are bad, therefore all are bad/are probably bad”. That leap cannot be made. We have bad examples of destacking, because they were done in bad ways. Then again, what about all the servers that have risen out of bronze to silver successfully? Why are you ignoring those (Dh/IoJ/HoD/EBay/NSP)? Also, kaineng was rank 24 server until an initiative to stack it that was pretty popular on the forums back near launch. I have no idea why you think Kaineng would be higher than they are if the bandwagon hadn’t happened, they were dead last lol.

Most of those servers rose up because others around it died/imploded and I’m pretty sure attrition had something to do with it.

Sure! But a lot of it also had to do with transfers in as well. My server used to only be able to queue 1 map infrequently in t6. Now we queue 2 maps on week days here and there (reset is guaranteed 2 map queue and then 2 or 3 guild groups in each other BL). A lot of servers lost a bunch of people, but some servers also gained. HoD/Dh in specific have gained boat loads of people.

Coyote.7031:

Arius.7031:

Why are you ignoring those (Dh/IoJ/HoD/EBay/NSP)?

I don’t know much about WvW since I’m new, but I do know that the guilds that left my server transferred to two of those listed servers. In fact one of them is allegedly buying guilds from us and other lower ranked servers. I strongly doubt they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. I imagine they are all mini band wagon servers, for people who don’t want to go beyond tier 3 and still want that small server feel. If I was to leave my server, it would be to ride their coattails to victory, not to go for tier 1 or 2.

At the moment though, I’m just waiting for thing to stabilize before I make a final judgement call. At the moment tier 3 to 7 look pretty rough with unbalanced match ups of varying degrees. Even tier 2 seems to be suffering a bit. Just look at those scores! What a terrible mess and a terrible time to join the GW2 WvW community. The only tiers that seem to have balanced matching is tier 1 and 8.

http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups

Yeah most of those (esp hod/dh) were bandwagoned up to varying degrees.

Also one thing I’ll caution you as an experienced wvwer (since launch over 2 years ago): the matchups are bad right now because of RNG, not because of actual balance. SBI got rng’d into t5, but they’re still a t4 server. T4 is arguably the most balanced and well rounded tier in the game at the moment, SBI/Dh/HoD/NSP are all highly competitive with one another and all have a very good shot of getting into t4 in each matchup. t5 should also be quite balanced when t4 servers stop getting rng’d into it. CD/EBay/IoJ have similar populations with GoM being the smallest (they’ll go to t6 when Mag gets some more glicko probably).

Tier 1 is balanced to some degree, sure, but it’s a coverage war (JQ wins during SEA for example) as opposed to round the clock super tight race. T2 is terrible atm, weak balance, weak variety, even lots of the fights guilds are complaining left and right about it. Tier 3 is the worst tier in the game, cus of the need for people to stack into tier 2 wannabe servers.

Arius.7031:

Then again, what about all the servers that have risen out of bronze to silver successfully? Why are you ignoring those (Dh/IoJ/HoD/EBay/NSP)?

A lot of those servers you have named “rose out” because of player attrition on the servers they fought.

Doll Mistress.9267:

It’s quite uncomfortable, to say the least, when your guildmates are enemies on an opposing server.

Haha it isn’t uncomfortable at all! That’s some of the most fun to be had in this game!

Chaba.5410:

Doll Mistress.9267:

It’s quite uncomfortable, to say the least, when your guildmates are enemies on an opposing server.

Haha it isn’t uncomfortable at all! That’s some of the most fun to be had in this game!

Totally agree. When I played rift pvp – the most fun to be had was yoloing against guildies rest of the match be kitten ed……. I don’t imagine this being any different other than outsiders accusing multi server guilds of spying blah blah blah.

Arius.7031:

gennyt.3428:

@ Arius

Didn’t say T3/4 are dead and I’m sure it’s a real hoot at points but not when I play so it does not matter to me and the people I play with. Why would I be concerned with what happens when and where I’m not playing? And I see you still compare NA to EU as if there aren’t real differences.

You should be concerned because the lower the overall pop of the game the worse the game does overall. Less money for ANet, less people in WvW, less possible transfers to your precious tier, less guilds to fight, etc etc… A healthy overall WvW benefits ALL WvW servers. It’s been brought up by many people on YOUR side of the debate that overall population getting lower is what caused the whole stacking issue in the first place lel.

You keep making non-points and tossing around the idea of “destacking”. When populations change due to patches/expansions/new games/general staleness/real life stuff etc, what magical method will be used to “destack” or balance, again and again and again? I’ve yet to hear a reasonable method. It’s like you’re arguing for the sake of arguing.

What non-points are you referring to? I can hand wave your entire post as a non-point as well, and if you continue to do so to me, I’ll return the favor gladly.

I didn’t say we actually SHOULD destack, it’s not a realistic possibility. Y’all are too convinced the game is ded in off hours on every server outside of t2, that there’s no fun to be had. You’re wrong, of course, but you think so regardless. You will not destacking except by the natural rising/falling of servers that occurs. This whole conversation started as how stupid it was to stack in the first place, it was never intended to be an actual conversation on what we should actually do. If you don’t like that, sorry that you don’t like thinking and discussing difficult topics. Don’t read this thread if you’re so opposed.

“Lol, sorry you don’t like people telling you what you did was bad for the game, but I’m not here to make you feel good. I think it’s a perfectly fine thing to ruin the game for others and make it bad for the majority by making a selfish decision, again, games are fundamentally selfish pursuits. If you want to be selfless, that’s great and reflects good on your character, but being selfish is perfectly acceptable. That doesn’t change the fact that your decisions can damage the game, especially the selfish ones.”

/facepalm
But you suggest people sacrifice what they’re looking to get out of the game for your sake. The irony.

I’m not suggesting that. It would be good, but it would never actually happen. Y’all don’t care about anyone else playing in different tier, that much is obvious, it’ll never happen. You’ll keep screwing all of us over day in and day out, not giving a second’s thought to it. So no, I’m not suggesting that you destack, I know all too well that you guys won’t destack willingly. Again, the conversation was originally about how stupid it was in the beginning to stack, and then hypothetically what would be the optimum player-driven solution, nobody holds any hopes that y’all will care about the game and actually do something about it. We know you won’t.

“You should be concerned because the lower the overall pop of the game the worse the game does overall”

No, I shouldn’t and I’m not. That’s something for the people designing and running the game to address. My GW2 concerns don’t go beyond a guild level and its not like we don’t play other games together.

“Y’all are too convinced the game is ded in off hours on every server outside of t2, that there’s no fun to be had. You’re wrong, of course, but you think so regardless.”

This is the kind of tunnel vision I’m talking about. The mode always being coverage wars aside, a lot of people in T1/2 know exactly what it’s like on lower tiers because they’ve played there(some recently) and decided its not what they want. But nope, you know best. “Variety”, that thing that quite a few people seem to seek these days doesn’t have to come in the form of different matchups and so guilds and individuals will likely gravitate toward certain tiers. There is no player solution to hypothesize. Its not a difficult argument, its just pointless. The basis of your argument is so skewed and you’re failing to see it. Anyway, good luck protecting the game for future generations and all that stuff.

gennyt.3428:

No, I shouldn’t and I’m not. That’s something for the people designing and running the game to address. My GW2 concerns don’t go beyond a guild level and its not like we don’t play other games together.

If the game dies/falls to a pop level sufficiently low that your guild can no longer enjoy the game, they’ll have 1 less game to enjoy together. Further, you’ll have a game with unique qualities (wvw isn’t currently replicated well in any other MMO, no wvw-esque mode exists with anything near the same following as wvw in gw2 atm).

Certainly you don’t have to care about it, but anyone who is reasonable and likes GW2 WvW, practically or conceptually, should care.

This is the kind of tunnel vision I’m talking about. The mode always being coverage wars aside, a lot of people in T1/2 know exactly what it’s like on lower tiers because they’ve played there(some recently) and decided its not what they want. But nope, you know best.

I was bringing up coverage cus it’s basically the only valid reason for not wanting to play in a lower tier server. Believe it or not, even t8 can get a zerg going in primetime, t6 and above have large zergs in primetime, t4 has queues daily. It don’t matter if there’s 10 guild groups running in one bl and 10 in another, you only need one bl to be populated to get fights. Unless you’re a gvger that is.

“Variety”, that thing that quite a few people seem to seek these days doesn’t have to come in the form of different matchups and so guilds and individuals will likely gravitate toward certain tiers. There is no player solution to hypothesize. Its not a difficult argument, its just pointless. The basis of your argument is so skewed and you’re failing to see it. Anyway, good luck protecting the game for future generations and all that stuff.

Yes there is a player solution to be hypothesized, namely, the one that involves the destacking of the overstacking t1/2 servers and spreading their population responsibly among servers to create a healthy, balanced, and variety-filled wvw scene. Of course, again, it’ll never happen. But, it’d be a great solution if it would happen. Again with the vague phrasing like the “non points” assertion earlier. What about my argument is skewed?

Can someone please give me a concise list, not some wall of text which this thread is overflowing with, on why they think destacking is a good thing?

Deli.1302:

Can someone please give me a concise list, not some wall of text which this thread is overflowing with, on why they think destacking is a good thing?

1. Matchup variety. If t1-3 could mix together somewhat like EU does atm, there’d be a lot of different servers/playstyles/guilds to fight.

2. Tier 3 won’t be a complete mess.

3. More guilds overall to fight. Once current t3 servers can pop into t2, and t2 can pop into kitten will basically be able to fight all the best guilds from all around, t3 will get to learn to get gud by consistently fighting t2 servers, and t1 will get to ppt against new people. lol

4. It could remove the full population from certain servers, making it possible to actually patch up coverage holes with transfers if the need arises.

5. It’ll make the mobility between tiers not so screwed up like it is now. If a server wants to get into t2, it won’t have to beat on tier 3 servers for ages to drain glicko. Whenever that sorta thing happens, like it’s happening in t3 and t6 right now, it’s damaging to the game’s population.

Concise as I could make it.

The only thing that people need to know is that transfers in general move from low tier to upper tier and in upper tier they quit. The small population servers are emptier than they were a year ago and then they were emptier than a year ago before that.

My server moved up a bunch of tiers from last year and it and the competition are emptier than tier 8 was last year.

This is the only problem in WvW worth talking about and as far as I can tell it’s never getting fixed (it was our first CDI! Remember that everyone?).

unfortuantely, the game is heading towards a direction where the idea of “rebuilding” a server is quite impossible due to lack of population. as the population decline, wvw become inbalance and then it become less fun.

i can say that a lot of guilds wanted to get out of their servers because of issues created by population decline, but they want to get out of their servers together as a guild, not leaving their members behind. guild with rich players can transfer themselves out, guilds with poor players will need help to move out.

keep in mind that at the end of the day, guild leaders will always think for the benefit of their guild unless the server have guild leaders who are willing to work things out to make things better for everyone not by just talking but doing as well, otherwise, guilds will just leave for other servers.

there also many other factors in play.

styx.7294:

The only thing that people need to know is that transfers in general move from low tier to upper tier and in upper tier they quit. The small population servers are emptier than they were a year ago and then they were emptier than a year ago before that.

My server moved up a bunch of tiers from last year and it and the competition are emptier than tier 8 was last year.

This is the only problem in WvW worth talking about and as far as I can tell it’s never getting fixed (it was our first CDI! Remember that everyone?).

You really shouldn’t generalize. A few months ago, a good many guilds from T1 servers transferred to, what was then, a T3 server. It then became locked in at T2. Since then, several servers moved from T1 down to the varying T2 guilds. There are 4 servers in relative competition. Thus, one is generally stuck in T3. It is my opinion, that the surge in these complaints come from T3 having one sever around that generally has a much higher average playing population then the other 2.

So I feel your claim that guilds only move up is very untrue.

SkyShroud.2865:

unfortuantely, the game is heading towards a direction where the idea of “rebuilding” a server is quite impossible due to lack of population. as the population decline, wvw become inbalance and then it become less fun.

You are mistaken as I see it. The game is moving the the exact direction to build up a servers population. Nothing revitalizes and MMO like an expansion pack.

Spooksie.4930:

O.O

Wow? Those kinds of shenanigans are that pervasive?

I guess that answers my question on whether or not the mode is worth playing.

Worth playing?

Just ask yourself what you’d rather. One stacked server stomping two other servers with no presence, or three servers who’re all topped up with presence for people to play with and against at as good to all hours of the day? There is nothing inherently wrong with “stacking”.

Its time to be more pragmatic and reasonable about this. If players want a fulfilling game mode then they’ve all got to collate in a single tier for a more well rounded fight. Server imbalance still occurs due to people/guilds overstacking into a single server, usually pre-seasons. But to take the picture as you’ve painted it is just plain ignorance.

Rimmy.9217:

Sure, but since (clearly) people don’t self-police for the greater good, then artificial limits should be put in place.

Like, transfers can only be bought with cash and not converted gold, for starters.

Someone give this man a podium to speak from. RAISE HIS VOICE!

Ross Biddle.2367:

Worth playing?

Just ask yourself what you’d rather. One stacked server stomping two other servers with no presence, or three servers who’re all topped up with presence for people to play with and against at as good to all hours of the day? There is nothing inherently wrong with “stacking”.

Its time to be more pragmatic and reasonable about this. If players want a fulfilling game mode then they’ve all got to collate in a single tier for a more well rounded fight. Server imbalance still occurs due to people/guilds overstacking into a single server, usually pre-seasons. But to take the picture as you’ve painted it is just plain ignorance.

Uhhh…..you must come from Tier 2. Cause in T1, BG is dead as a doornail in WvW. JQ and TC zergs are MASSIVE. And then there’s us. Effing tiny with no presence. It’s not 3 servers “topped off” up here. It’s a total mess. And why you ask? Because of the issue addressed here in this thread.

It’s not good for the Gw2 (WVW) community at large. And it needs to get curbed. Hard.