Guild Wars 2

I’m just curious to know if Anet monitors server WvW populations and if so, any plans to encourage people to move to the “empty” ones?

I agree vabbi is a such a loss for members.

I have no doubt Anet does have extensive logs of WvW population/activity.
And they definitely need to begin encouraging people to move to the empty ones.

Imagine a scenario where every server had roughly comparable populations and coverage. Then round robin match-ups would be fair (if you win it’s because you’re awesome, not because of high population, and if you lose it’s because you suck, not because of low pop). This would go a LONG way towards fixing the stagnation we have now in WvW.

As for getting people to move — I say give incentives, starting with free transfers.
And if Anet explained this issue clearly, many would probably move without further incentive.

I really doubt Anet will ever make WvW into more than a numbers game. Im with you, but I just don’t have the faith.

I’m sure population numbers come into play in most match-ups to varying degrees. A T3 server might have a relative low server for that tier but in T4-5 they might be competitive numbers wise. However, I’m talking about the bottom of the barrel servers….T7-8. There simply isn’t any tiers lower for them to go. Plus, with the new matchmaking system how is an underpopulated server in T7-8 going to do anything besides get roflstomped? I’m on NSP, love the server but our population is terrible tbh. We do fairly well with the people we have but it is so demoralizing night after night for months on end to face massive hordes….heck I’d be happy with 2-1 odds most times. I just wish Anet would address some of these core concerns instead of worrying about giving us boiling oil mastery and trap vendors.

I agree, having been on both sides of population balance the last couple months. No matter how good your players are, if the other side has more people/better coverage, you’re going to lose.

Not to mention the “outmanned” buff has got to be the worse effort at balancing I’ve ever seen in a wvw game.

Funny… I’m on NSP as well and our population problem is really demoralizing because we really are good when people are actually on. I really hate to say it, but we probably belong in T8.

I was hoping the new rank chests would encourage more PvE’ers to try out WvW… however, looking at the loot I get from these chests, that’s not going to happen.

Anyway, all this matchup business that Anet is doing doesn’t address the basic problem of population imbalance — even if it puts us all in the tier we’re supposed to be in, how will that address the lack of variety in matchups?

Please, no more free transfers.

Or, if you want, base them on ranking in wvw ladder, NOT on simple population.

Anet should just release monthly average WvW populations,
NA average pop
Oceanic/Sea average pop
Euro average pop

help players make an informed decision on where they want to transfer to, and when a guild chooses to transfer they can do it without unbalancing the servers

I don’t want another mass transfer to lower servers…

(playing in T7 EU)

You mean like last time they did that and screwed up the T1 EU matchup?

There are 2 reasons for server transfers:

1) balancing general population, such that new customers fit onto the existing servers.
That’s of course ANets main interest and I guess that was the reason why there was a free transfer event to low pop servers. But that has 0 meaning with respect to WvW balance.

Concerning WvW-balance a relation between transfer-costs and WvW-rank would be much more useful:

2a) transfer-costs = WvW-rating, e.g 886 gems to transfer to ET; 2 218 gems to transfer to SoR or

2b) cost = (server-rating – rating-of-worst-server) * 2 would give ET = 0 gems; SoR = (2218 – 886)*2 = 2664 gems, or

2c) …

Maybe this can be combined:
- a PvE player (Sum of WvW-ranks of all chars < X) pays for transfers as it is now
- a WvW-player (Sum of WvW-ranks of all chars ≥ X) pays 2a or 2b or 2c …

Lord Kuru.3685:

Funny… I’m on NSP as well and our population problem is really demoralizing because we really are good when people are actually on. I really hate to say it, but we probably belong in T8.

I was hoping the new rank chests would encourage more PvE’ers to try out WvW… however, looking at the loot I get from these chests, that’s not going to happen.

Anyway, all this matchup business that Anet is doing doesn’t address the basic problem of population imbalance — even if it puts us all in the tier we’re supposed to be in, how will that address the lack of variety in matchups?

Our matchup was extremely close when it started. Did you folks lose some guilds or is it just human nature kicking in?

I recall very clearly my first encounter with you guys in the new grouping. Zos did terrible, terrible damage to our front ranks after cc’ing our pants off. You guys were a force to be reckoned with.

At any rate, I feel that even tiers with similar population servers will eventually become lopsided if one server wins a couple times in a row. The new system has the possibility to create horrendous mismatches but servers will tend to field the most players when they are matched up against new foes.

If there are some other underlying issues on your server (not YOUR server, just speaking generally), then no amount of free transfers will fix the problem permanently. Everything will seem ok with the new influx of people, then slowly but surely people and guilds will start transferring back out.

Free tranfers to all Tier1/Tier2 servers!