Guild Wars 2

This wouldn’t work anyway, whether or not you want it to happen – you took the time to type in a solution that won’t work. And I explained why it won’t. The why: a lot of people really think this would be a solution.

It wouldn’t work because ?

Because people would quit ? They wouldn’t be bandwagoning.

It really would work, those who don’t like it would leave, those who stayed would be locked on whatever server they chose for the rest of time. Conclusion … no more bandwagon.

You could build a more advanced version of how maps in PvE put you in the same instance as guildmates and friends (preferably mutual friends), add a favorites feature that allows you to guarantee a spot with a small handful of people, and then wipe WvW and redistribute people based on those parameters. To keep things fresh, have the whole system refresh bimonthly. If the system works well, transfers won’t be necessary. If it messes up, file a support ticket.
It would keep matchups fresher and it removes the concept of bandwagoning altogether.

Nuzt.7894:

It wouldn’t work because ?

Because people would quit ? They wouldn’t be bandwagoning.

It really would work, those who don’t like it would leave, those who stayed would be locked on whatever server they chose for the rest of time. Conclusion … no more bandwagon.

Yes, but no more people to fill any servers – you can then merge servers with the problem that sever a has got 150 people left, b 100, c 80 and d 110.
You can however delete all servers then again and people have to decide to which they want to go – everything all over again. I guess that would be the point where all wvw players would leave the game anyway.

The server linking alone puts a huge strain on all of us – can we please not forget that community is a huge factor in wvw and I guess that is Jayne’s initial point anyway – too many new faces can destroy any functioning server.

Jana.6831:

The server linking alone puts a huge strain on all of us – can we please not forget that community is a huge factor in wvw and I guess that is Jayne’s initial point anyway – too many new faces can destroy any functioning server.

Teamspeak hell is a problem. I think that Arenanet should establish a built-in voice com program so that changing servers doesn’t create as much confusion.

Re-link servers weekly, and do the linking based on a weighted blend of player-driven metrics over the past few weeks or months, managed by a neural network. Drive pre-link server allocations using this data in tandem with the neural net via a genetic algorithm to make them different every week.

Fewer stomps long-terms while the system tries to balance itself, more responsive short-term re-balancing by mass player migrations, and adaptive response to timezone dominance to prevent nightcapping without needing to reduce the efforts of off-hours players from a point perspective.

No different than what I said two years ago.

Problem solved.

The problem with the satelite servers is that they aren’t allowed a community – they can’t grow anyway, they’re some randoms who are being thrown into a random server and pulled out the next week.
If I were on such a server, I’d transfer to a bigger one.

It’s useless for people who do not work for ArenaNet to come up with a plan that counters bandwgonners. Server transfers give a lot of money to ArenaNet and you could come up with a plan that makes bandwagonning tougher but doesn’t give ArenaNet more money. Since you have to come up with a plan that gives ArenaNet the most money, it’s hard to come up with a plan since you don’t have access to their gem sales.

Nuzt.7894:

Edit: Before anyone freaks out, I am not suggesting this happens, I’m not suggesting this is a good idea, I’m only pointing out that this is the only true way to not only stop bandwagoning but also fix the damage done.

Good, because its not a good idea, its most definetly not the “only true way” to stop bandwagoning and it would cause great harm to current communities.

Jayne.9251:

We have a ton of smart folks on this forum. Let’s open it up for discussion, since without a resolution to bandwaggoning, we are stuck perpetually in Dante’s first circle (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_ ).

I think it’s reasonable to say that most avid fans of WvW would prefer a close matchup each week vs a steamroll. It leads to greater attachment of the game, a sports-esque feeling of contributing to your “team,” win or lose, and engagement that even when you’re not playing, you’re checking the score while at work.

What then do you think will fix the issue of bandwaggoning. No remake of factions, server reset, mergers or linking will resolve issues with this much-beloved game mode until we find a solution.

So how do we do it?

My thoughts are you raise the cost of transfers to $50 real money, not gems, and then hard cap all servers at X. Once X is reached, a server is closed until someone transfers off. No exceptions (yes, even if only half your guild managed to transfer). Those over the X amount are removed from the server and given the choice of other servers. Account history/seniority determines the cut off.

Want to be in Tier 1 (not that that matters anymore, but perhaps this will show others)? Recruit and power your way up. Of course the glicko will have to be made more responsive, so that a strong push yields rewards.

Any other ideas?

Because this is the core of the problem.

There are many, many ways to counter it, some things that have been thrown around these very forums for the last few years just of the top of my head in no particular order:

1. Rework the entire transfer cost system so that
a. it reflects which link you transfer to and gets more expensive, and I mean MORE expensive, not this current joke where you can get enough transfer gold from farming HOT maps for a few hours, but something that actually can be felt in the pocket.
b. The more an account is transferred around within a certain time period (for example 1 year) the more it costs each consequitive time it gets transferred.

2. Change the scoring system further so that server populations are taken into account, everything from PPK to PPT farming should reflect this. This way, server hopping for the win becomes simply irrelevant.

3. Do what they have done before, lower the “full” status bar on the links that already have plenty of players and lock them down. But this time, do not give in to bandwagon whining.

4. Impliment a limit on total transfers-in and have that limit visible on the server selection menu. So a guild can see if they will fit or not, and how much space there actually is on any given server. So people dont get stuck and do not transfer needlessly.

Many other things can be done. Disperse T1, each T1 server has enough people on it to fill the rest of the servers to the brim, though due to their “hybernation” periods, they may not realize it.

etc. etc. lots of stuff can be done, but wont be for 2 reasons. First it would take a ton of resources to do all this sort of stuff, maybe even re-launching and remarketing WVW, 2nd is that A-Net simply lacks the balls to do so and caves in to the whining, just look at what happened the last time they locked down overstacker servers, really wasn’t that long ago.

Simple solution…. You can only transfer once every 3 months.

Knob.6835:

Simple solution…. You can only transfer once every 3 months.

This is probably the best we can hope for. I give this idea all of the plusses.

Svarty.8019:

Knob.6835:

Simple solution…. You can only transfer once every 3 months.

This is probably the best we can hope for. I give this idea all of the plusses.

I guess the number of people that transfer more often than evry 2-3 month is completely irrelevant. It will does nothing

Tongku.5326:

There are many, many ways to counter it, some things that have been thrown around these very forums for the last few years just of the top of my head in no particular order:

1. Rework the entire transfer cost system so that
a. it reflects which link you transfer to and gets more expensive, and I mean MORE expensive, not this current joke where you can get enough transfer gold from farming HOT maps for a few hours, but something that actually can be felt in the pocket.
b. The more an account is transferred around within a certain time period (for example 1 year) the more it costs each consequitive time it gets transferred.

2. Change the scoring system further so that server populations are taken into account, everything from PPK to PPT farming should reflect this. This way, server hopping for the win becomes simply irrelevant.

3. Do what they have done before, lower the “full” status bar on the links that already have plenty of players and lock them down. But this time, do not give in to bandwagon whining.

4. Impliment a limit on total transfers-in and have that limit visible on the server selection menu. So a guild can see if they will fit or not, and how much space there actually is on any given server. So people dont get stuck and do not transfer needlessly.

Many other things can be done. Disperse T1, each T1 server has enough people on it to fill the rest of the servers to the brim, though due to their “hybernation” periods, they may not realize it.

etc. etc. lots of stuff can be done, but wont be for 2 reasons. First it would take a ton of resources to do all this sort of stuff, maybe even re-launching and remarketing WVW, 2nd is that A-Net simply lacks the balls to do so and caves in to the whining, just look at what happened the last time they locked down overstacker servers, really wasn’t that long ago.

Love ALL of these ideas. I think implementing even just one or two would fix/resolve a lot.

The sequential increase is intriguing, it lays the responsibility of costs firmly on the player. You keep jumping, you’re going to pay more and more until it’s too exhorbitant. Could there be a “reset” to the cost say if a player stays 6 months on a server?

Last idea is brilliant — list population caps on server front page at transfer window.

As for comments that it shouldn’t be punative, I agree to some extent. But that only works when you have people who genuinely care about the game itself and not just themselves.

How about when the combined population of a linked pair hits full, they lock both servers?

It seems they are trying to get population to move to a linked server, then float with the link, but that hurts balance now in exchange for future balance.

Dawdler.8521:

without being crippled by glicko rankings.

Than why not kill Glicko?

If 1st in Tier, move up; if last in Tier, move down. Server borderland “colors” should be random (so ex. T1, the #1 server has just as much chance of being any side color green/red/blue as another – no more green only dominance + good to change up things as healthy).

Top T1 server still needs to come in 1st or 2nd (PPT) to stay in T1 (it’s “good to be the king”). Bottom of T8 server can still make it to T7 any given week if they come in first the during the week (if server pride is good and they don’t give up, bottom tier server can always move up).

You have volatility between tiers (no need to account for WvW population imbalances since it self corrects the following week(s) via PPT) and you can freely open up all server transfers except the T1 first and second winning PPT servers from the prior week (more money/more gems for ANet too).

Server community “pride” is restored.

Everyone wins. Done.

[Work on fixing (tweak) PPT values by clearly laying out the rules ahead of time.]

Artaz.3819:

Dawdler.8521:

without being crippled by glicko rankings.

Than why not kill Glicko?

If 1st in Tier, move up; if last in Tier, move down. Server borderland “colors” should be random (so ex. T1, the #1 server has just as much chance of being any side color green/red/blue as another – no more green only dominance + good to change up things as healthy).

Top T1 server still needs to come in 1st or 2nd (PPT) to stay in T1 (it’s “good to be the king”). Bottom of T8 server can still make it to T7 any given week if they come in first the during the week (if server pride is good and they don’t give up, bottom tier server can always move up).

You have volatility between tiers (no need to account for WvW population imbalances since it self corrects the following week(s) via PPT) and you can freely open up all server transfers except the T1 first and second winning PPT servers from the prior week (more money/more gems for ANet too).

Server community “pride” is restored.

Everyone wins. Done.

[Work on fixing (tweak) PPT values by clearly laying out the rules ahead of time.]

This system only ends up with servers bouncing between tiers – not populated enough to win a tier above which means they will go right back down, while the server that did go down probably roflstomp the tier they are in. Next matchup it will just repeat.

Its not good.

Another option would be to give people an incentive to stay vs. changing servers frequently. Server loyalty is still imposed by the community of a particular location. Anet definitely hasn’t helped in that area and if anything the changes have only hurt what many players had put effort into.

I would like to think that Anet’s business model isn’t inherently focused on server transfers. They make plenty from the Gem Store and people converting gems to gold alone (totally my opinion, not based on fact.)

There are a number of ways to approach this. Primarily balancing out the populations and rankings would solve a lot of issues. The suggestions in this thread are awesome and I really hope they get reviewed. Though it would be better to start a Reddit thread if you want a more immediate response. I really don’t know what it will take. I know it sucks to see the game mode slowly dropping off of a cliff with no one at the bottom to give it some love.

Anet had to know that server links would have the consequence of people moving to the open server attached to the “winning” matchup. So about my only thought there is the hope becomes that the community will solve this issue over time. That doesn’t seem like the right response either.

at this point don’t enough players have multiple accounts across multiple servers to throw a monkey wrench in anything ANET tries when it comes to locking down or better accounting for active WvW population changes? I am sure we are making their statistics go bonkers enough with just the endlessly transferring around but when one player has two or more accounts they are actively playing that must be a nightmare to pin down.

As for the BW solution, well it is kitten hard to change human nature and pretty kitten late in the game to introduce any major social engineering plans to sway our actions so good luck with it. I’ve given up on the idea of community in this game sadly, ANET blew it pretty hard from the start but I always thought the potential could overcome their heavy handedness. Now I worry those of us left clinging to it are only prolonging our own suffering. I am not a huge fan of EotM but I’ve watched some comms and players make their own little pockets of community in that random mess so maybe generated alliances with zero identity wont be any worse that what we have now.

Another problem to consider is bandwaggoning guilds that hop servers fighting against mainly pugs, which rapidly just becomes a farm until the pugs realise they are just being farmed.

It’s recently happened on my server, where our mainly pug groups are being run over by well organised band wagon guild groups when we no longer have the core guild group, and made worse by comms who just reform and rush back in to be wiped again and again rather than just conceding the tower and map hopping to attack something else or splitting forces so you force the enemy organised blob to split to defend multiple targets at the same time making them much less effective.

Part of the problem is people don’t form small raids any more to try and sneak objectives, don’t want to think, don’t seem to be capable of having a few supply traps or siege disablers in their inventories to frustrate the enemy zerg and generally act like either lemmings or sheep.

Large scale fights are fun if you are evenly matched – but once one side has an organised 30+ in it and the other one doesn’t it’s only going to end one way.

Best way of defeating a fight orientated guild dominated blob if you don’t have one of your own- don’t give them any bags or fights you know you will lose, and keep them starved of supplies with traps and trebs. They aren’t that interested in pvd and will get bored. In the meantime split into 5 man teams and attack everything else. Another thing people have forgotten is that you don’t have to take something first push with a small team- it’s more a question of draining supplies and forcing them to defend and post scouts.

Baldrick.8967:

where our mainly pug groups are being run over by well organised band wagon guild groups

:)))))

I think the problem is not the bandwagoners, the problem is people thinking bandwagoning is a problem. Let us all try accept a fact that Anet is only treating WvW mode as a casual play for all of us, so now we NEED to accept it too.

If we are so determined to raise the cost of server transfer, have you ever thought on the unforeseen consequences of this action? How are people going to transfer their friends to the server they want to play together? How are communities going to be able to recruit new blood into their server/community? Hell some full servers are dying now because some guilds became inactive but they’re still holding the population quota making it impossible to recover the numbers back.

I think we need to stop blaming and throw away the negative stigma of bandwagoning in wvw, let us open back the server restrictions and server costs. Make WvW back in 2013 where server transfers are FREE! Let people freely move between servers, if some guilds wish for small-medium fights, they can go to lower tiers. If some people seek for large scale fights, go for higher tiers. You cannot please all WvWers if we are to lock and restrict it as it is now, there are many kinds of WvWers out there. Please, don’t try looking this whole situation just trying to protect your little server community!

If some people would like some break from large scale fights and go to another server, let them! But with the current pricing, people can get stuck in a server. So what do they do? Since many won’t bother spending hundreds of gold or $20 for just a pathetic server transfer, they just go into Pve or pvp. Or worst, they stop playing the game.

There is nothing wrong with bandwaggoning. Noone enjoys playing on empty servers. I think even desolation (T1 EU) is not full enough compared to servers 3 years ago.

do you people realize that anet wants bandwagoners? they pay for transfers

why do you think server linking is a thing and many of the links dont make sense? anet easily manipulates people into transferring to higher servers, then change link and they have to transfer again

Neftex.7594:

do you people realize that anet wants bandwagoners? they pay for transfers

why do you think server linking is a thing and many of the links dont make sense? anet easily manipulates people into transferring to higher servers, then change link and they have to transfer again

Bang. Spot on.

No bandwagons – No transfer – No incoming for Anet.

Offair.2563:

Neftex.7594:

do you people realize that anet wants bandwagoners? they pay for transfers

why do you think server linking is a thing and many of the links dont make sense? anet easily manipulates people into transferring to higher servers, then change link and they have to transfer again

Bang. Spot on.

No bandwagons – No transfer – No incoming for Anet.

I don’t think so actually..
Free transfers destroy everything, so they have to cost.
People on the forums demanded to have more players on their servers – and this (linking) was the solution. I can get more into that if you want me to :P
If anet were interested in bandwagoners a lot of the higher populated servers weren’t listed as “medium” right now.
For once I don’t blame them.

Ezat.1548:

If we are so determined to raise the cost of server transfer, have you ever thought on the unforeseen consequences of this action? How are people going to transfer their friends to the server they want to play together? How are communities going to be able to recruit new blood into their server/community?

I think we need to stop blaming and throw away the negative stigma of bandwagoning in wvw, let us open back the server restrictions and server costs. Make WvW back in 2013 where server transfers are FREE! Let people freely move between servers, if some guilds wish for small-medium fights, they can go to lower tiers. If some people seek for large scale fights, go for higher tiers. You cannot please all WvWers if we are to lock and restrict it as it is now, there are many kinds of WvWers out there. Please, don’t try looking this whole situation just trying to protect your little server community!

Completely disagree with you. Letting players go where they want has resulted in the mess that is NA right now. And it’s starting to creep over and infect EU now, too.

And it’s an ongoing cycle: Anet closes the servers to “full” — suddenly we get a bunch of posts on the forums about how people can’t play with their friends/open the servers. Anet caves and opens the servers, then literally less than a week later, we get a bunch of posts on the forums complaining about WvW and its lack of balance.

And you’ll notice I’m not saying close transfers completely. If a server has room, then transfer to your heart’s content. Just no more bandwaggoning to the high tiers where it completely ruins the gameplay and gives lopsided matches where people stop playing because what’s the point?

If it’s crucial that you play with friends, then you need to evaluate, as an adult, what is more important to you: being on an already over-populated server, or going to a lower tier one and playing with the people you like. It can’t be both. Because both means that an already overcrowded server gets more crowded and then just steamrolls any opponent they encounter.

That steamrolling is no fun for the winning server, the losing servers or pretty much anyone who actually likes WvW as a game mode.

The root cause of this steamrolling/overstacking, political egos aside, has been the bandwaggoner; plus Anet caving and not standing behind decisions to lock servers, since most of the bigger ones are already overflowing above the “normal” population.

Otherwise, we’re stuck in a vicious cycle of “OPEN/BALANCE” wah wah wah forever.

The only way to keep people sticking to their servers is rewarding server loyality.
Like getting twice the loot from each kill if you are at least 1 year on the server. Or each kill counts double towards Ultimate Dominator etc.

Thelgar.7214:

That is pretty much it. Servers stacking their way up the tiers is the problem. And it isn’t individuals moving, but guilds. Tie guilds to a single server. If you move a guild, start all over in building a guild hall and gaining advancements.

This would be the best thing to stop bandwagoning. With the megaserver and all the cross-server PVE guilds I doubt this will ever happen. It kind of all goes back to arenanet just do not want to do traditional server mergers so they will keep coming up with things like server linking and megaserver and all the issues that come with them.

You can say all you want to restrict players not to ‘bandwagon’, but you are actually being selfish in your own bubble of ‘server community’. If Anet is to restrict a guild to a particular server and add consequences to their guild halls… then Anet is undoing their ‘casual’ approach in all their game modes. Why would pve guilds enjoy so much freedom in their realm while us as WvWers have to pay so much cost to transfer or enjoy a game mode that WE seek, we don’t want your selfish ‘community’ heroes to restrain other players from enjoying WvW however they want.

Some people don’t care about servers falling apart, when a server falls apart, people just naturally seek the challenge elsewhere, or they become the server white knights seeking to rebuild… its their choice. Either they go up or down the tiers, its their choice. Not dictated by you.

Making WvW to become more restricted will just make this game mode die even faster. Thats why I suggest Free transfers back in 2013, a casual mode, just like Anet intends it to be… and for us to finally ACCEPT it as it is.

Ezat.1548:

If Anet is to restrict a guild to a particular server and add consequences to their guild halls… then Anet is undoing their ‘casual’ approach in all their game modes. Why would pve guilds enjoy so much freedom in their realm while us as WvWers have to pay so much cost to transfer or enjoy a game mode that WE seek, we don’t want your selfish ‘community’ heroes to restrain other players from enjoying WvW however they want.

Because there’s more people than just guilds to wvw and some guilds like to destroy the fun for others – locked tiers, for example. This would be another hurdle so that people don’t move too casually as a big guild can have a huge impact – one left us and nearly destroyed our server with that. I’m glad they left, but still.

We will never be able to find the perfect balance for server population, hell its been 4 years Anet cannot give a perfect answer for this supposed ‘dilemma’. Its never been a dilemma, its a dilemma we just want to believe in. Some people in a particular server will stop playing causing an imbalance in their population cap, but the system still sees these players as active participants in WvW activity for a brief/long time (We don’t know, only Anet knows).

Thats why from my own experience in a Full server for a long time, our WvW is pretty much dead in SEA/Oceanics whilst other competing servers have the numbers in those timezones, including EU. We cannot recruit because of the server status for a long time, how did we solve this? Nothing, we just got ktrained during off hours. How do we solve this?

Well, anet ignored wvw for the majority of these 4 years – and this thread isn’t really about population imbalance but guilds who transfer up and possibly destroy existing communities.

Jana, that is just our view on a particular guild on the actions they make in WvW. It might be biased, for them its seeking fun, for some of us it is destroying fun. Who are we to say and telling them how to play WvW? If we are to do that, aren’t we just destroying their fun in WvW? So if a particular guild wants to move or stay, thats up to them.

Remember, WvW is for all, not only for you or me or some particular guild.

And let us always accept a fact that whenever a guild or some guilds move between the servers, communities will always take a hit by it. So its up to the communities to adapt to the changes, not crying about it.

Ezat.1548:

So its up to the communities to adapt to the changes, not crying about it.

The communities are a bit bigger than any guild – and more important. It’s up to the guilds to adapt to that.
But I guess you won’t get the point anyway.

2 ways…

1. Remove server transferring and then manually redistribute active population as the game fluxes.
2. More bandwagoners…

:/

You have to remember that Anet makes a lot of money from these bandwagoners, removing or restricting their movement across servers might jeopardize the money they earn from all the gems bought to make these said transfers. I believe it’s the only reason they’re still around after all this time.

Ezat.1548:

Jana, that is just our view on a particular guild on the actions they make in WvW. It might be biased, for them its seeking fun, for some of us it is destroying fun. Who are we to say and telling them how to play WvW? If we are to do that, aren’t we just destroying their fun in WvW? So if a particular guild wants to move or stay, thats up to them.

Remember, WvW is for all, not only for you or me or some particular guild.

And let us always accept a fact that whenever a guild or some guilds move between the servers, communities will always take a hit by it. So its up to the communities to adapt to the changes, not crying about it.

You see, where it stands now is between a major guild vs an entire community possibly quitting or bailing WvW altogether, so the fun stands between a large group of people and a large playerbase.

Perhaps it’s the guilds who ought to adapt themselves and cease imbalancing communities and destroying servers due to their selfish need to have fun while completely disregarding the game as a whole and everybody’s satisfaction.

These said guilds won’t have anyone to fight if everybody ends up quitting.

Ezat.1548:

You can say all you want to restrict players not to ‘bandwagon’, but you are actually being selfish in your own bubble of ‘server community’. If Anet is to restrict a guild to a particular server and add consequences to their guild halls… then Anet is undoing their ‘casual’ approach in all their game modes. Why would pve guilds enjoy so much freedom in their realm while us as WvWers have to pay so much cost to transfer or enjoy a game mode that WE seek, we don’t want your selfish ‘community’ heroes to restrain other players from enjoying WvW however they want.

Some people don’t care about servers falling apart, when a server falls apart, people just naturally seek the challenge elsewhere, or they become the server white knights seeking to rebuild… its their choice. Either they go up or down the tiers, its their choice. Not dictated by you.

Making WvW to become more restricted will just make this game mode die even faster. Thats why I suggest Free transfers back in 2013, a casual mode, just like Anet intends it to be… and for us to finally ACCEPT it as it is.

Oh the irony.

A guild will have what? 50 players max?

How many do you think make up a server community?

And who’s being selfish?

Bottom line, evaluate what serves the greater number and implement. Not cater to a minority.

Anet making money from server transfer or not is not the issue, if they want to keep it thats fine, im just giving a suggestion.

Your ‘imagined community’ can be selfish too for making people stick to you when they have lost their fun in a particular server. Anet will not be able to do what you guys are suggesting, countering bandwagonners and such to the very detail.

People can play however they want, wherever they want. No in-game community can block/stop any player from playing WvW the way they want to play, no matter how big or small your community is.

How do we really define what serves the greater number in WvW? Don’t speak as if you are representing the whole WvW community, there are LOTS of different players out there who don’t even care what you are trying to campaign because countering bandwagonning is just as bad as giving more restrictions to other players to move servers.

There are lots of players who are moving between the servers, who are you to say these players as ‘minority’ who are not entitled to get the same freedom Anet is giving to all gw2 players in WvW just the same as you ‘server community’ people are.

Call me however you want, but these suggestions of countering bandwagoning will just undermine the very essence of freedom Anet is giving to us ALL. Not just to some people who are claiming to be speaking on behalf of ‘server community’, its just purely Anet’s policy not give special treament to a supposed ‘imagined community’

Ezat.1548:

Anet making money from server transfer or not is not the issue, if they want to keep it thats fine, im just giving a suggestion.

Your ‘imagined community’ can be selfish too for making people stick to you when they have lost their fun in a particular server. Anet will not be able to do what you guys are suggesting, countering bandwagonners and such to the very detail.

You see, claims like; ‘imagined community’ is a typical comment more than likely coming from someone whose in one of those major guilds with the benifit to abuse the power of transfering between servers. You can’t truly be standing here claiming that a community is imaginary when there are dozen of people complaining about bandwagoners. Allow me to open your narrowed mind a bit by saying that I played in one of the top tier servers (Which still happens to be climbing) and I’ve experienced how my server community and other server’s communities (By talking to the people there?) have continously complained about huge guild transfers not only imbalancing the already established communities, but clogging queues up and bringing awful vibes to the mapchat and whatnot, more importantly as someone whose been in the server I chose since day 1, I can safely say that a lot of guilds abuse this kind of power to farm other servers while completely disregarding the established community.

In other words, doing exactly what you’re doing now.

Ezat.1548:

People can play however they want, wherever they want. No in-game community can block/stop any player from playing WvW the way they want to play, no matter how big or small your community is.

No one is saying that you or anyone shouldn’t play in a specific way, what I am highlighting is once again, the abuse and population imbalance these bandwagoners bring about, and to do exactly the opposite of what you just did now; Respect and take the server community into account and not outright ignore it and not outright disrespect and disregard it, you just proved my point.

Ezat.1548:

How do we really define what serves the greater number in WvW? Don’t speak as if you are representing the whole WvW community, there are LOTS of different players out there who don’t even care what you are trying to campaign because countering bandwagonning is just as bad as giving more restrictions to other players to move servers.

There are lots of players who are moving between the servers, who are you to say these players as ‘minority’ who are not entitled to get the same freedom Anet is giving to all gw2 players in WvW just the same as you ‘server community’ people are.

Call me however you want, but these suggestions of countering bandwagoning will just undermine the very essence of freedom Anet is giving to us ALL. Not just to some people who are claiming to be speaking on behalf of ‘server community’, its just purely Anet’s policy not give special treament to a supposed ‘imagined community’

WvW and this game is in a worse state than it was pre-HoT, you might want to change that kind of mentality with people leaving and even the top commanders and some guilds I’ve been checking out are complaining that not as many are playing or fighting in WvW anymore. Let me straight with you, it’s your kind of people in fact who are ruining WvW, who are only thinking about their own well being and their guild’s while completely ignoring the rest of the communities and people as a whole. Like I said above, you won’t have anyone to fight if you keep this kind of approach up my friend, people will leave and people will always find better games and better ways to enjoy themselves.

Guild Wars 2 at this moment happens to have one of the best, if not the best combat system but that is unfortunately being countered by your kind of appraoch towards communities and people as a whole, you’re driving them away and Anet is making money from your kind transfering between servers. I come from a major community and server whose always fought their way up to the top Tiers and yes, I know exactly what I’m talking about.

Z

@Ezrat. I never said I was speaking for anyone. I just said serve the greater numbers, whatever that may be.

The problem is real. one solution could be to have the reward directly connected to the numbers : if you attach 10 vs 1 or 50 vs 20 you have no reward or really low reward and reward on the maps are at maximum when map is balanced , otherwise, the biggest group you are the worst reward you get. This for forcing people to spread on all the 4 map and not only on 1 or 2 (usually homeborder and eb )

Zenral, you must know before portraying me as a bandwagonner, I’ve been in a specific server for nearly 3 years now I just don’t see any REAL & CREDIBLE argument to morally blame bandwagonners. If Anet is to implement these supposed suggestions, they will be killing the fun of many WvWers as well. Why should Anet force guilds and players to be stuck in a server just to serve these supposed ‘server community’s interests? Why should players be punished for moving servers and given excessive amount of fees if they are to move again? Why should guilds have to obey to some people who think they are the ‘server community’? Why should a guild alliance numbering in the hundreds have to listen to some people crying in map chat about ‘server community’?

Sure, server communities do exist, but players and guilds with different interests also exist too. You call them as bandwagonners, but some call them finding where the fun is and seeking fresh challenge. SFR server fell because some people/guilds moved away and some just went inactive. Did the guilds listen to some/few people who took pride in their server? No right? Because why would they? Some guilds just take the guild comes first approach. And I don’t blame them for doing so.

So is there really any REAL & CREDIBLE blaming accusation against these supposed ‘bandwagonners’? If you are crying over imbalanced fights, then say hello to WvW reality. It was never gonna be balanced. Some servers will always get new transfers, some don’t, like it or not

And Zenral, your point of mentioning about people getting less fights and fewer people is exactly making people leave your server. Why should people stay in a server when there is no fights? No way you are going to ask people to stay and build with you, nobody has time for that. Many players seek instant fun (people especially ‘server community people’ need to accept this fact). WvW is where people have fun, not doing a secondary job. Like it or not

Things to slow the bandwagon and increase participation…

Devote the equivalent amount of development to upgrading wvw like the devs would do for an xpac.

I think that making a 3 faction wvw experience in one persistent, massive, open-world style environment (or more maps than we have currently in play), with engine upgrades capable of delivering large-scale, real-time battles with up to 500 players fighting up close and personal with less lag…. would be good.

Reducing lag. Improved server-based physics. Reducing lag. Have huge draw distances. Reducing lag. Better skill fx… All this cool stuff while procedurally generating terrain on the fly.

Professions 2.0. Combat 2.0. Better support roles to play. Skills that work better for movement based combat, not all these reticles we need to chase a herd of cats with. Condition revamps. Stealth revamps.

Far better rewards. Unique looking wvw legendary weapons and armors and back pieces to craft. Legendary trinket and rune and sigil and infusion crafting for players with wvw rank 500.

Announce these improvements to the gaming community and let players know that gw2 now has the best classes and combat and rvr experience out of all mmos…

Enjoy the flood of players to the game and in wvw!

:)

Ezat.1548:

Zenral, you must know before portraying me as a bandwagonner, I’ve been in a specific server for nearly 3 years now I just don’t see any REAL & CREDIBLE argument to morally blame bandwagonners. If Anet is to implement these supposed suggestions, they will be killing the fun of many WvWers as well. Why should Anet force guilds and players to be stuck in a server just to serve these supposed ‘server community’s interests? Why should players be punished for moving servers and given excessive amount of fees if they are to move again? Why should guilds have to obey to some people who think they are the ‘server community’? Why should a guild alliance numbering in the hundreds have to listen to some people crying in map chat about ‘server community’?

As said, it stands between a server community and a guild(s), it’s already a known fact that major guilds with major influence in terms of balance and numbers know about the impact they apply when migrating from one server to another, in addition to that there are guilds who do abuse this kind of power to imbalance and bring about the results we have today in WvW, with 2-3 major servers steamrolling the rest and the result of that being players quitting or migrating over to the winning server, thus adding to the damage. – That kind of action needs to be stopped, because yes there are guilds who abuse this power and yes there are guilds who are fully aware of this and use this for their benifit to karma train, farm lootbags from less fortunate players with Anet allowing this to happen because yes, they do earn their good share of money from gems. – You should direct yourself to the guilds who continously abuse this for their own selfish benifit. This has nothing to do with the server community itself but the game as a whole.

Without a server community, you won’t have much of a server to face, let alone an organized platform that could offer good fights and a thriving community. If you pay a little more attention to what I’m trying to say, you’ll realize that the goal to all of this is to bring about better fights and a better vibe to WvW as a whole, but right now people like there are individuals like you who only think about themselves and the well being of a few lucky guilds who have the influence and the manpower to shift things as they are done now. And I haven’t even mentioned the actual bandwagoners yet.

Ezat.1548:

Sure, server communities do exist, but players and guilds with different interests also exist too. You call them as bandwagonners, but some call them finding where the fun is and seeking fresh challeng […]

I never called guilds bandwagoners, you put those words in my mouth, but sure if you wish to put them in the mix too let’s go with it. As mentioned above, major guilds in this case do influence server numbers, and many guilds migrate back and forth between winning servers to abuse this kind of power, and since you mentioned SFR you should know a few guilds who’re now in Deso, who were previously in Piken when they were number 1 and before that in FSP (I wonder why)

Ezat.1548:

And Zenral, your point of mentioning about people getting less fights and fewer people is exactly making people leave your server. Why should people stay in a server when there is no fights? No way you are going to ask people to stay and build with you, nobody has time for that. Many players seek instant fun (people especially ‘server community people’ need to accept this fact). WvW is where people have fun, not doing a secondary job. Like it or not

What people do or dont isn’t my business, but there is a growing level of unhappiness in WvW which you haven’t paid much attention to, I’m simply highlighting the problem and you’re completely ignoring it, that’s how the situation is right now. But you know, feel free to keep playing as you are and blindly believe things work as good as they are. WvW is going to keep running a decent decline in both numbers and quality of fights as long as guilds and bandwagoners are allowed to freely roam and migrating back and forth between major servers, everybody likes to win after all and very few people like to put the effort in getting there.

Thelgar.7214:

Buy Some Apples.6390:

No one cares about server pride any more.

All WvW players and WvW guilds want now are fights.

You get more fights in the top tier servers.

So they are moving up to those servers.

Simply put it’s another nail in the coffin of WvW.

FA and DB seem to be different IME. Not that people don’t like to fight, and not that there aren’t people who just want to fight. But both have people that are trying to win the match rather than uniblob against the competing servers in the middle of an open field for no reason. I know there is server pride on FA. It might not be server pride on DB, but it feels like it.

Are you saying that the other servers aren’t blob mentality? Look at any other server and you will see the exact same thing. Every server has pugmanders tag that will have lots of people on it. But the lack of individual guild groups that are willing to run separately is dwindling on ever server. But to single FA and DB out as blob servers, you are being blind.

As with a lot of societal issues, education is the only long term solution. Only once ppl realize the gap that exist between what they say they want vs what they factually do will there be hope.

The solution has to come from the players, not from Anet. And for that to happen players have to feel it make sense and that they have power over their gaming experience. But unless they are aware of the consequences of their actions, or care about it at all, forget any measure to counter bandwagons. The path of least resistance is always going to win where ignorance rule. Always.

Forum bug… /15 chars

Alora Arrowstorm.1268:

Thelgar.7214:

Buy Some Apples.6390:

No one cares about server pride any more.

All WvW players and WvW guilds want now are fights.

You get more fights in the top tier servers.

So they are moving up to those servers.

Simply put it’s another nail in the coffin of WvW.

FA and DB seem to be different IME. Not that people don’t like to fight, and not that there aren’t people who just want to fight. But both have people that are trying to win the match rather than uniblob against the competing servers in the middle of an open field for no reason. I know there is server pride on FA. It might not be server pride on DB, but it feels like it.

Are you saying that the other servers aren’t blob mentality? Look at any other server and you will see the exact same thing. Every server has pugmanders tag that will have lots of people on it. But the lack of individual guild groups that are willing to run separately is dwindling on ever server. But to single FA and DB out as blob servers, you are being blind.

I didn’t single FA and DB out as blob servers. I said the exact opposite. I think you may be the one that needs your vision checked.