Guild Wars 2

Hi,

First of all, apologies if this topic has already been discussed, I recently came back on to the game after 5 month break. Not sure if the same situation described below is the same in NA, but just for the safe side I called the thread European.

I see now that WvW is deserted, no fights even on EB at “Prime Time”. Yet GW2 is still the 2nd most played MMO game.

Answer for this is surely simple, why have everyone on every server complaining about so little action, just demolish the bronze league and allow them a free transfer. It makes no difference to PvE or PvP due to megaservers.

Personally I do not understand why this has not already occurred, is it some kind of pride that they don’t want to admit less people are playing WvW? The game is over 3 years old now, it’s silly to think the WvW playerbase would be the same. WvW is the only game type where participation actually matters per server, PvE and PvP can be played with people from across servers.

The way it is going, the vast majority of the WvW community will have quit by the time you resolve this important issue. Okay, the new borderlands are terrible and have turned into EoTM. People don’t want to spend 20 minutes looking for a fight, they just want some action. But at least if there are enemies, there are chances of fights.

Thanks,
Joey

Same thing has been proposed for long time now (and I am in EU tier 8, previously in tier 9, so I know how empty these are). I think it has not been implemented by now for 3 main reasons:

• it would mean Anet admits HoT was a failure (at least for WvW, not going to argue about PvE atm) and they really don’t want to get that sort of tag.

• the people left in empty servers are the ones who have had 3 years to transfer off. And yet, they havent. Its not about having free transfer or not, its because these players love their server. What you are suggesting is they abandon everything they worked hard for last 3 years and start to fight for some other server they dont care about, or in worse case, the server they have been fighting against many months and have grown to hate.

• there is no reason to believe server merges (or reductions or deletions) actually increase WvW population. I believe for example that players in bronze league will not continue playing once bronze league is eliminated, they just quit the GW2. The people who “just want some action” are doing PvP or have already transfered away long time ago.

FogLeg.9354:

Same thing has been proposed for long time now (and I am in EU tier 8, previously in tier 9, so I know how empty these are). I think it has not been implemented by now for 3 main reasons:

• it would mean Anet admits HoT was a failure (at least for WvW, not going to argue about PvE atm) and they really don’t want to get that sort of tag.

• the people left in empty servers are the ones who have had 3 years to transfer off. And yet, they havent. Its not about having free transfer or not, its because these players love their server. What you are suggesting is they abandon everything they worked hard for last 3 years and start to fight for some other server they dont care about, or in worse case, the server they have been fighting against many months and have grown to hate.

• there is no reason to believe server merges (or reductions or deletions) actually increase WvW population. I believe for example that players in bronze league will not continue playing once bronze league is eliminated, they just quit the GW2. The people who “just want some action” are doing PvP or have already transfered away long time ago.

actualy i know alot of people that stay on their server because its to expensive to transfer, i think it costs 1800gems to transfer to a t1 server, which is alot of gold for most people, when my server was on rank 13-14 i also wanted to transfer to a t1 server and the only thing that kept me from doing that was the high transfer fee

and about merging servers, depends how many are even active, i mean if a server in the bronze league has like 100 core players, it doesnt really mater if they spread across gold and silver league

(anyone from bronze league can corrent me here and tell me what the avarage player numbers are on ts or how many run around with the zerg)

maybe thats why anet doesnt do it , they have the numbers and they know that the lower bracket servers has so few players that even if they close the servers the few players that are on it would not make a difference

100? I wish. Zerg? Whats that?

FoW has maybe 20-30 players logging into WvW anymore during day. Spread them over 24 hours period and well… you can see where it goes. Thing is, that is about the population of last 5 EU servers, some even having less people now.

So, again, whats the point closing those down? Most of those players in last tiers play in last tiers because they dont like to play in tier 1. Do you really think forcing them into tier 1 by closing down servers they like to be is good solution?

Judging from the US kill/death data and assuming EU is similar, we only need 3 tiers at most and could cut 1 map at least. Everything else is redundant.

LJMaster.6214:

Yet GW2 is still the 2nd most played MMO game.

lol, 2nd most played mmo – my kitten. According to who? Some site affiliated/partnered with NC$oft/EAnet? This game is not even in top 10 MMO’s, it’s jsut the reddit white knight army is very active in all kind of polls.

Also server pride is stupid. It’s a video game, who cares.

FogLeg.9354:

100? I wish. Zerg? Whats that?

FoW has maybe 20-30 players logging into WvW anymore during day. Spread them over 24 hours period and well… you can see where it goes. Thing is, that is about the population of last 5 EU servers, some even having less people now.

So, again, whats the point closing those down? Most of those players in last tiers play in last tiers because they dont like to play in tier 1. Do you really think forcing them into tier 1 by closing down servers they like to be is good solution?

Long time Vabbi player here, we’re also around 20 spread over the day – thought I don’t belive the WvW problems go away by merging servers. Especially if you don’t find a way to keep the server communities intact.

sayori.4836:

LJMaster.6214:

Yet GW2 is still the 2nd most played MMO game.

lol, 2nd most played mmo – my kitten. According to who? Some site affiliated/partnered with NC$oft/EAnet? This game is not even in top 10 MMO’s, it’s jsut the reddit white knight army is very active in all kind of polls.

Also server pride is stupid. It’s a video game, who cares.

I’d like to know the source about it too. GW2 is not the least played, but is far from the most played at the same time.

sayori.4836:

LJMaster.6214:

Yet GW2 is still the 2nd most played MMO game.

Also server pride is stupid. It’s a video game, who cares.

I don’t care about the server, I care about the people I meet every day in EB.

Besides, the problems of WvW are not only the low numbers of bronze league, otherwise people wouldn’t be leaving WvW in masses – the patches this Tuesday go into the right direction ( e.g. the strength of keeps correlates more with the number of people defending again. e.g. there’s no more retaking of a fully upgraded borderland after nightcaps and the oasis event can be done in 5 mins by 3 people who can go back to their usual business afterwards), but there’s still a lot to do.

An important part is better class balancing: right now some builds win against 3+ enemies or can 1-shot kill most other builds. What I find particularly frustrating is the long timeout of DH traps, which have more of a minefield feeling when the DH is long gone and the trap just insta-kills you out of the blue.

Getting back into fights is still a huge problem. Especially if you don’t own the second waypoint in the BL, you can forget to respawn and run back for a defense.

My third critizism is that WvW achievements are hidden behind such a high material barrier, that new wvw-only guilds are practically useless. If it takes 10-20 people a constant contribution over multiple months to obtain basic upgrades like tower or keep claiming, having a 10 people wvw guild is just useless. This leads to a consolidation of a few number of guilds per server without new ones forming. Also, if one of three guilds of a server becomes defunct (e.g. the leader having no time to play anymore), it takes months to replace.

Deaeira.2651:

FogLeg.9354:

100? I wish. Zerg? Whats that?

FoW has maybe 20-30 players logging into WvW anymore during day. Spread them over 24 hours period and well… you can see where it goes. Thing is, that is about the population of last 5 EU servers, some even having less people now.

So, again, whats the point closing those down? Most of those players in last tiers play in last tiers because they dont like to play in tier 1. Do you really think forcing them into tier 1 by closing down servers they like to be is good solution?

Long time Vabbi player here, we’re also around 20 spread over the day – thought I don’t belive the WvW problems go away by merging servers. Especially if you don’t find a way to keep the server communities intact.

Hey Vabbi (waves). We can probably get to fight you soon, if RoS continues to drop. Do you have any guilds left in Vabbi that raid every night? Cause atm all we have to fight is that blobby WSR server-wide pug-group that keeps increasing steadily as we kill them until they eventually overrun us by pure numbers and it becomes not fun again. RoS has no guilds to fight.

I’m all in favor of just getting rid of the bronze league and adding it’s player base to silver league servers. I know everyone loves to scream, “but the community….” but it would be quite a simple thing to get rid of bronze league servers yet let the players from those servers stay together. You just combine one bronze league server with a silver league server based on rank, coverage, etc. Something like this:
Eredon Terrace + Dragonbrand = Dragon Terrace
Devona’s Rest + Stormbluff Isle = Devona’s Isle

The name’s are meant to be a joke, but basically the concept is add the highest rank silver server and the lowest rank bronze server together. Then, add the second highest silver to the second lowest bronze, and so on. Biggest challenge I can see is the awkward period when bitter enemies like GoM and SF are thrown together, but I’m sure they’ll work it out. People who play competitive MMOs are usually friendly and well-mannered. Hehe

FogLeg.9354:

Deaeira.2651:

FogLeg.9354:

100? I wish. Zerg? Whats that?

FoW has maybe 20-30 players logging into WvW anymore during day. Spread them over 24 hours period and well… you can see where it goes. Thing is, that is about the population of last 5 EU servers, some even having less people now.

So, again, whats the point closing those down? Most of those players in last tiers play in last tiers because they dont like to play in tier 1. Do you really think forcing them into tier 1 by closing down servers they like to be is good solution?

Long time Vabbi player here, we’re also around 20 spread over the day – thought I don’t belive the WvW problems go away by merging servers. Especially if you don’t find a way to keep the server communities intact.

Hey Vabbi (waves). We can probably get to fight you soon, if RoS continues to drop. Do you have any guilds left in Vabbi that raid every night? Cause atm all we have to fight is that blobby WSR server-wide pug-group that keeps increasing steadily as we kill them until they eventually overrun us by pure numbers and it becomes not fun again. RoS has no guilds to fight.

Holla to all FoWers! I wouldn’t say we’re ready for T8 again – during the rise to T6 at the beginning of this year, some guilds from BT and RoS joined Vabbi, but the inevitable stop in progression and the relase of HoT made the whole bubble implode again. Some guilds left for WSR and the rest of us has been slowly reforming. There are not many commanders left but since we arrived in T9, we have sufficient coverage to recruit the one or other newbie. Still, the fights with UW and BT have been quite balanced (and fun for a change! waves at UW and BT) – but that’s definitely not sufficient for T8.

Simzani.4318:

sayori.4836:

LJMaster.6214:

Yet GW2 is still the 2nd most played MMO game.

lol, 2nd most played mmo – my kitten. According to who? Some site affiliated/partnered with NC$oft/EAnet? This game is not even in top 10 MMO’s, it’s jsut the reddit white knight army is very active in all kind of polls.

Also server pride is stupid. It’s a video game, who cares.

I’d like to know the source about it too. GW2 is not the least played, but is far from the most played at the same time.

So what are these 10 other MMO’s that are played more than GW2? I’d like to try them most MMO that come out are cheap garbage. I want to know what he thinks is most played, probably ESO.

FogLeg.9354:

Deaeira.2651:

FogLeg.9354:

100? I wish. Zerg? Whats that?

FoW has maybe 20-30 players logging into WvW anymore during day. Spread them over 24 hours period and well… you can see where it goes. Thing is, that is about the population of last 5 EU servers, some even having less people now.

So, again, whats the point closing those down? Most of those players in last tiers play in last tiers because they dont like to play in tier 1. Do you really think forcing them into tier 1 by closing down servers they like to be is good solution?

Long time Vabbi player here, we’re also around 20 spread over the day – thought I don’t belive the WvW problems go away by merging servers. Especially if you don’t find a way to keep the server communities intact.

Hey Vabbi (waves). We can probably get to fight you soon, if RoS continues to drop. Do you have any guilds left in Vabbi that raid every night? Cause atm all we have to fight is that blobby WSR server-wide pug-group that keeps increasing steadily as we kill them until they eventually overrun us by pure numbers and it becomes not fun again. RoS has no guilds to fight.

Hey RoS!
Well, we’ve got two WVW guilds left on Vabbi (GOD & WAR), with irregular raids, mostly dependent upon commander mood and availability of WVW guild missions. But like Deaeira said, the server is pretty low on numbers and on par with its current opponents in that regard (for instance, UW and BT both also have only one and a half raiding guild, from what I saw until now), since several of the guilds that transfered to Vabbi during 2015 left it; a good chunk of them actually went to WSR I think, but they may have moved on again since.

Nonetheless, it has been obvious for months now that low tiers are bleeding out of players, even more so since HOT, when the WVW mechanics went downhill. Even though I always liked our small server community, I don’t think that it is realistic to hope to keep it that way. It has been said above that the game is already getting older, and, except if they do a major gamemode overhaul (I know there have been rumors and annoucenements about it, but well, I’ll wait for detailed information, ‘cause if they decide to do it in 2020, I’ll be long gone), the overall player population in this gamemode won’t be going up. So it’s really more about when they will decide to merge servers, rather than if. Or they will give a free/cheaper transfer to the few remaining people before closing the low tier servers. Call me a pessimist, but I expect them to do so after the servers reach critical emptiness. That being said, Vabbi borderland during week days looks like the Gobi desert, so we could be close to that point already…

To be honest, I understand that in some ways it is cruel to just delete servers people have been on for three years. But in truth, it is only a game and there is enough space for active WvW players from bronze league to join silver and bronze. Not to mention the price for you and all friends to move. Remember in bronze league they have lower ranks and less gold due to less kipps (xp + loot).

I agree with the earlier poster, the reason this won’t happen is because ANet is afraid to admit that HoT was a disaster, which it was for WvW. There are enough players in WvW to make it enjoyable once more. My former guild is scattered across the top 10 EU servers, all of which complain that it is dead. There is barely a prime time, even on EB any more. We used to get fights from prime time till midnight, now it is just dying.

Helys Vikonas.9125:

Nonetheless, it has been obvious for months now that low tiers are bleeding out of players, even more so since HOT, when the WVW mechanics went downhill. Even though I always liked our small server community, I don’t think that it is realistic to hope to keep it that way. It has been said above that the game is already getting older, and, except if they do a major gamemode overhaul (I know there have been rumors and annoucenements about it, but well, I’ll wait for detailed information, ‘cause if they decide to do it in 2020, I’ll be long gone), the overall player population in this gamemode won’t be going up. So it’s really more about when they will decide to merge servers, rather than if. Or they will give a free/cheaper transfer to the few remaining people before closing the low tier servers. Call me a pessimist, but I expect them to do so after the servers reach critical emptiness. That being said, Vabbi borderland during week days looks like the Gobi desert, so we could be close to that point already…

Sadly WvW is pretty much deserted in tier 8 too. Except WSR which tries to climb up to tier 7 and keeps running around empty maps during the day. I am not blaming them, I understand they have many more people and not FoW nor RoS has anyone left for them to fight.

Still, when before HoT low tier servers lost players because people who wanted more fights kept transfering off to higher tier servers, now low tier servers lose players who just quit GW2. I mean even our pure WvW guild has half the members only log in once a week or month to check if anything has changed. The other FoW players who I know before HoT spent hours every day upgrading BL maps are not in other servers either. They not doing PvE, or PvP. They just left the game.

Thats why I am not sure shutting down these low tier servers will help anyone. I believe people who get their home server removed, will also stop playing, not just WvW but GW2 too. So, shutting them down will not get more players to higher tier servers either, it just makes less players play GW2.

Sounds to me as the bottom 6, 9 or even 12 server:

• All player there can freely transfer to somewhere else
• ANet should either mark them as locked (new player will suffer only a bad experience, should they select such a world when they do not know what they do) or set the transfer-price to them the same as very high worlds (such that the free transfer from them cannot be exploited to switch cheap between higher worlds)
• When no one there enters WvW anymore they can be dissolved.

Agree that they need to do something about populations on Servers, forget server pride, players just leave to more populated servers and that server ends up lacking players, even for fights. That’s the problem with transfers and no server being full anymore.

There’s nothing they can do about difference in coverage as of now, there isn’t enough players to make that side of WvW, actually competitively balanced.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Agree that they need to do something about populations on Servers, forget server pride, players just leave to more populated servers and that server ends up lacking players, even for fights. That’s the problem with transfers and no server being full anymore.

There’s nothing they can do about difference in coverage as of now, there isn’t enough players to make that side of WvW, actually competitively balanced.

Empty servers are just the symptom, not the reason (for some, refer to my earlier post). Merging servers might buy some months of breathing space, but it won’t fix the issues of WvW.

FogLeg.9354:

Deaeira.2651:

FogLeg.9354:

100? I wish. Zerg? Whats that?

FoW has maybe 20-30 players logging into WvW anymore during day. Spread them over 24 hours period and well… you can see where it goes. Thing is, that is about the population of last 5 EU servers, some even having less people now.

So, again, whats the point closing those down? Most of those players in last tiers play in last tiers because they dont like to play in tier 1. Do you really think forcing them into tier 1 by closing down servers they like to be is good solution?

Long time Vabbi player here, we’re also around 20 spread over the day – thought I don’t belive the WvW problems go away by merging servers. Especially if you don’t find a way to keep the server communities intact.

Hey Vabbi (waves). We can probably get to fight you soon, if RoS continues to drop. Do you have any guilds left in Vabbi that raid every night? Cause atm all we have to fight is that blobby WSR server-wide pug-group that keeps increasing steadily as we kill them until they eventually overrun us by pure numbers and it becomes not fun again. RoS has no guilds to fight.

Well, RoS here,
I always loved WvW, but now i log in there and i play PvE in borderlands… I tested it and in prime time at a saturday there was no commander on any map, no chat happening, some afk, and the only caps we had were near wps and were the same as the ones needed for dailies. And to top it all, there was no Outnumbered buff so the other servers are pretty much the same.
As much as i like wvw there is no point in me playing it now because it’s just running around on an empty map soloing camps, stare at towers and keeps that we may cap once in a month and sometimes see a random player .
Unfotunatly the name “Desert Borderlands” fits my WvW experience perfectly -_-
So my choices atm are:
– Wander aimlessly in WvW;
– Not play WvW;
– Spend a ton of gold for a server change (and for that stop every goal i have just so i can save enough gold to be able to play WvW again)
Every “great news” anet tells about wvw my instant reaction is “Content not playable for me… skip”
This has to be fixed one way or another

Dayra.7405:

Sounds to me as the bottom 6, 9 or even 12 server:

• All player there can freely transfer to somewhere else
• ANet should either mark them as locked (new player will suffer only a bad experience, should they select such a world when they do not know what they do) or set the transfer-price to them the same as very high worlds (such that the free transfer from them cannot be exploited to switch cheap between higher worlds)
• When no one there enters WvW anymore they can be dissolved.

Well, since you want to post pointless things, here is what Anet should do to fix the population problem:

• disband all tier 1 servers and randomly spread those players between remaining servers
• never allow any transfers again after that
• new players will be forced to join lowest population server

There really is no solution. Somebody’s going to be mad no matter what they do. And if they do nothing then WvW will just bleed out – like it has been, because they have done nothing for 3+ years even though people have been complaining about it since a month after launch.

FogLeg.9354:

Dayra.7405:

Sounds to me as the bottom 6, 9 or even 12 server:

• All player there can freely transfer to somewhere else
• ANet should either mark them as locked (new player will suffer only a bad experience, should they select such a world when they do not know what they do) or set the transfer-price to them the same as very high worlds (such that the free transfer from them cannot be exploited to switch cheap between higher worlds)
• When no one there enters WvW anymore they can be dissolved.

Well, since you want to post pointless things, here is what Anet should do to fix the population problem:

• disband all tier 1 servers and randomly spread those players between remaining servers
• never allow any transfers again after that
• new players will be forced to join lowest population server

Hm. If you compare my and your proposal you will find some remarkable differences.

• I proposed free transfers to people like Rahkylus.8097 such that they can play again as they like to play where ever they want.
• I proposed to keep all server as long as anyone enters them.
• I proposed to warn new player that have no idea what they are choosing when they enter a world where their gaming experience is seriously limited.
• I only proposed equally high transfer costs to avoid exploits.