Guild Wars 2

ANET cant fix Casual’s etc. Not their fault if BG players stays longer on WvW

Im mindblown and disappointed in you anet.
You need to UNSTACK those server but instead you unlock them to stack them even more.

And you’re telling me the server that is ABSOLUTELY dominating in T1 has less pop that the t4 servers?
smh.

I lost all faith I had in you to try and save this mode. This proves that you simply do not care about actual balance… only gems from people stacking BG some more.

gg anet.

Anet discussing population. Opens BG and JQ. Closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.

BG and JQ players “Better late than never”

#makeBGgreatagain

Love,

Your favorite Blackgate roamer thief, Tyy

Swamurabi.7890:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Blackgate and Jade Quarry both opened because they were below the population cap. Blackgate currently has a smaller population than Jade Quarry and some of the combined linked worlds populations (combined linked worlds population example being Crystal Desert + Darkhaven + Devona’s Rest combined has a higher population than Blackgate). With all that being said, we do keep track of the transfers that happen. Since we have been seeing an increase in transfer behavior with the past 2 world links, we are discussing whether we want to change how we calculate WvW world populations or if we want to lower the WvW population caps.

Does this mean that next week if you manipulate the matchup for T1 and have BG/JQ/CD it will be competitive?

Please do this and then re-evaluate your algorithm.

Yeah, this would be a great competitive environment, because as proven by ANet’s metrics they all align wonderfully. Can’t wait to see the results of this matchup, it should be close guys! We’re going to finally have a competitive T1!

Match BG vs CD and JQ vs CD for a week each. would love this matchup variety. We’d be gamed to raid 5 days a week if my schedule is favorable. Make WvW eotm like, swap the map to ebg. we go red/blue/green and let the guilds go ham.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Blackgate and Jade Quarry both opened because they were below the population cap. Blackgate currently has a smaller population than Jade Quarry and some of the combined linked worlds populations (combined linked worlds population example being Crystal Desert + Darkhaven + Devona’s Rest combined has a higher population than Blackgate). With all that being said, we do keep track of the transfers that happen. Since we have been seeing an increase in transfer behavior with the past 2 world links, we are discussing whether we want to change how we calculate WvW world populations or if we want to lower the WvW population caps.

There’s another way to view this post.

Providing details & being more transparent to the WvW community…this helps confirm & reduce wild guessing…imho

Players can contribute feedback based on things on what the devs really have to work with & not on speculation.

Hopefully you can use the feedback here to help you make the hard decisions on where WvW needs to be going.

Keep in mind:

Feedback could have hidden & selfish agendas behind them, or be out-right trolls.

Feedback used out of context or partial in solution could have un-intended consequences.

Full disclosure can become toxic, or knowledge can be abused…so caution is the word.

Thank you,
Diku

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Blackgate and Jade Quarry both opened because they were below the population cap. Blackgate currently has a smaller population than Jade Quarry and some of the combined linked worlds populations (combined linked worlds population example being Crystal Desert + Darkhaven + Devona’s Rest combined has a higher population than Blackgate). With all that being said, we do keep track of the transfers that happen. Since we have been seeing an increase in transfer behavior with the past 2 world links, we are discussing whether we want to change how we calculate WvW world populations or if we want to lower the WvW population caps.

You got played.

If you have your finger on the pulse and can see the transfers, why is BG still open. The transfers in to BG in the last 24hrs could have made one of your new worlds that you wanted.

You can not fix the error in judgement of the last 24hrs, those accounts are not going anywhere. Maybe you can limit the damage by lowering the map population forcing obscene queues but next time you say they had less population of certain links, put that server against them and see what happens, this is NOT a beta test that can be taken out.

rhayan.9580:

ANET cant fix Casual’s etc. Not their fault if BG players stays longer on WvW

Well they could base their ‘population’ counts more on activity rather than just a head count. If serverA has 1000 people but most of them log in to do their dailies then log out. Then serverB has 700 players but most spend 2-3hours a night in WvW capturing and killing, then there’s no doubt that serverB would likely be more successful than serverA.

Perhaps calculating active population based on worldXP or participation points given out would be better than just having an ‘do they wvw sometimes’ headcount?

I’m wondering if population is calculated by how many times players enter a map.

If you are on an overstacked server, you don’t jump maps because your blob won’t all make it but if your population is lower you are free to map hop and you get counted towards the population every time you jump maps.

This could explain why the CD link has more players then unlinked BG or JQ.

Jerus.4350:

Well they could base their ‘population’ counts more on activity rather than just a head count. If serverA has 1000 people but most of them log in to do their dailies then log out. Then serverB has 700 players but most spend 2-3hours a night in WvW capturing and killing, then there’s no doubt that serverB would likely be more successful than serverA.

Perhaps calculating active population based on worldXP or participation points given out would be better than just having an ‘do they wvw sometimes’ headcount?

That is the way they count wvw population, by activity, there’s no other way to do a head count because both pve and wvw players reside on the same servers. With BG having less population than JQ or CD plus 2 links, it either means their players are less active these days or players transferred off.

It’s not like they’ve had something to make them implode recently, so one would think it’s the population not being active in wvw, it’s not like that hasn’t happened with their server before. Anet as usual just looks at numbers and doesn’t actually know what’s going on with their game.

Maybe they check by wvw levels gained too as they do that for the in game poll notification, but who knows.

Jerus.4350:

rhayan.9580:

ANET cant fix Casual’s etc. Not their fault if BG players stays longer on WvW

Well they could base their ‘population’ counts more on activity rather than just a head count. If serverA has 1000 people but most of them log in to do their dailies then log out. Then serverB has 700 players but most spend 2-3hours a night in WvW capturing and killing, then there’s no doubt that serverB would likely be more successful than serverA.

Perhaps calculating active population based on worldXP or participation points given out would be better than just having an ‘do they wvw sometimes’ headcount?

I can’t ageee with this, i know there are still plenty of people who play long hours to help their server win, doing this will waste their effort and instead will only bring negative effect when they take a break.

I think what ANET needs to do is remove dailies on WvW to prevent players comming just for dailies. They should increase rewards on defending/capturing objectives. But the bulk of rewards should go to player kills, to encourage people to be competetive instead of going to WvW not properly geared and lack of focus.

They probably could just take out the easy dailies to do, like ruins cap or kill a veteran.
They can leave the harder ones like a keep capture in.

Easy WvW dailies are like the milk at the back of the grocery store…imho

Jerus.4350:

rhayan.9580:

ANET cant fix Casual’s etc. Not their fault if BG players stays longer on WvW

Well they could base their ‘population’ counts more on activity rather than just a head count. If serverA has 1000 people but most of them log in to do their dailies then log out. Then serverB has 700 players but most spend 2-3hours a night in WvW capturing and killing, then there’s no doubt that serverB would likely be more successful than serverA.

Perhaps calculating active population based on worldXP or participation points given out would be better than just having an ‘do they wvw sometimes’ headcount?

Its pretty clear their population count is simply based on someone coming into WvW for a certain time period, probably as little time as doing dailies. Its equally clear that this calculation is so flawed as to be useless. It has to be based on total player hours or some measure of activity like objectives taken plus kills.

morrolan.9608:

Its pretty clear their population count is simply based on someone coming into WvW for a certain time period, probably as little time as doing dailies. Its equally clear that this calculation is so flawed as to be useless. It has to be based on total player hours or some measure of activity like objectives taken plus kills.

How about basing the count off daily WvW Rank Ups earned by players for a server?

Oh wait…EotM…snap!

Fix: Remove earning WXP from EotM sound agreeable?

However, hibernating or tanking behavior can easily invalidate or skew these statistics…double snap!

I love to see bg and jq cd in match since anet thinks there population is the same.

I for one support CD being moved to tier 1 for a week, our ability to field one ebg pugmander during most of the day will surely win the day.

Long live CD our new overlords!

Lapiy.7160:

I for one support CD being moved to tier 1 for a week, our ability to field one ebg pugmander during most of the day will surely win the day.

Just transfer them all to BG dude! hear they need people. Really low pop according to ANET

Xenesis.6389:

They probably could just take out the easy dailies to do, like ruins cap or kill a veteran.
They can leave the harder ones like a keep capture in.

I prefer to completely remove daily so that pve players wont have to go to wvw and spam on chat about taking a keep.

As for population issue, i think all tiers somewhat have the same numbers. If we base it on player kills, t4 has 61k / t1 and t3 have 57k / t2 has 54k. Its just that t1 servers are far more organize than t4, so matching a t1 server against t4 is a bad idea

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Blackgate and Jade Quarry both opened because they were below the population cap. Blackgate currently has a smaller population than Jade Quarry and some of the combined linked worlds populations (combined linked worlds population example being Crystal Desert + Darkhaven + Devona’s Rest combined has a higher population than Blackgate). With all that being said, we do keep track of the transfers that happen. Since we have been seeing an increase in transfer behavior with the past 2 world links, we are discussing whether we want to change how we calculate WvW world populations or if we want to lower the WvW population caps.

Well first, thanks for popping in. I find myself surprised that BG has a smaller population then JQ, that is quite fascinating. Would it be possible to ever give us actual details on what you use to calculate these numbers? Also has transferring and population shifts become more common since server linking was introduced?

My post is epic i got response from Anet about population numbers, i’m proud of myself and ty anet

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Arena Net lock Blackgate right now. Just check your logs and see the mass transfers just already started. This was a mistake. I understand that this is automated but still a very bad mistake. BG is at risk of absorbing very large guilds on off peak hours when they already have that coverage. BG equates to World 1: 95% and we all know it.

Right now there is no server to compete against BG and you’ve made it so that BG can receive more numbers. The amount of guilds now deciding to go to BG is anywhere from 6 to 8 guilds..this does not include singular players. This effects coverage largely and goes against what you’re trying to do.

The longer BG stays open, the more imbalance created. The more you’ll have to resort to forcing movement of players.

What a load of rubbish. BG is doing well as BG does not create drama like stupid alliances band wagoners. Population facts have been shared and I hope they are simple enough for you to get your head around.

The current bandwagon movement onto BG, I think, is caused by our incredible period of time being closed. When BG was open in the past for longer periods of time, there would never be this kind of massive movement of people onto the server.

Honestly, I think there’d be more movement of guilds more often if all servers had affordable transfer prices. There’d be less hesitation to move, for example, off BG to look for fights, because you could always transfer back after you’ve done your tour.

Granted, bandwagoners will still bandwagon, but that’s been an issue all servers have had to deal with since launch anyway, and bandwagoners have never had a positive long term effect on a server – they usually cause a server to crash and burn after they move to the next bandwagon destination. I don’t think individual bandwagoners should be taken account in this circumstance.

Just my 2 coppers

Blackgate still looking to recruit quality guilds, players, and especially roamers! Lets make BG a roamer’s paradise!

This does nothing for balance when you have a server like FA in the same match up . It’s pathetic people are embracing lopsided wins .

@Tyyphoon.5301 – Didn’t you transfer to TC once and you told everyone in map chat you left BG because BG was toxic GG

Aphs.9528:

@Tyyphoon.5301 - Didn’t you transfer to TC once and you told everyone in map chat you left BG because BG was toxic GG

No, I moved to SoR. Get your facts straight. I moved from SoR to TC with HIRE and the entire SoR exodus. I also helped coordinate a 2v1 on BG during season 2 WvW. But I have been back on BG (my native server) for 2 years now. If you want me to be dangerous, I can be. Your choice.

Still told us how toxic BG was Anyway enjoy the fights . Peach out .

I am all for reevaluating how population is tracked/measured in WvW. Because clearly the idea that a triple linked server can somehow compare with Blackgate right now is just silliness.

So I propose that whatever population metrics you have for WvW be made public, at least in some limited fashion. This would allow us to see what you see, and maybe give you some fresh analysis on it. And it might also allow us to help you design some improved metrics to better measure population and activity levels.

The Crystal Desert linking probably did have a population similar to Blackgate and Jade Quarry, but only because they are in T4. The amount of activity a server has seems to decrease as they go up in tiers.

For example, when Fort Aspenwood rolled T3 (which was only a couple of weeks ago) they had 42000 kills and were the most active NA server if you were to measure ‘activity’ crudely by (kills+deaths) (https://www.reddit.com/r/Gw2WvW/comments/59vqtq/euna_kill_stats_2110_2810/); they had around 68k for (kills+deaths).

This week they are in T1 and they currently only have 12000 kills and only around 32k for (kills+deaths)(https://wvwintel.com/#1009), its not the end of the week yet but they’re going to end at around half the ‘activity’ they were at when they rolled T3.

Edit: In that same link above you can see YB were T1 not too long ago too, I don’t have a record of it, but they had something like 10000 kills that week and 30k (kills+deaths). This week they are in T3 and they have 25000 kills and 56k (kills+deaths) already (https://wvwintel.com/#1003).

For the most part, I support a lot of the stuff that has been done to help WVW, reward tracks, removal of DBL as main borderlands map, scoring changes, etc. These are all very nice, only shame they weren’t done sooner.

I also really like the server links, had some bad ones, but also some excellent ones, fought against my old server, etc. Its a lot of fun and breathed a lot of life into the game for me.

But the one thing that remains is the population balance. And no matter what is done, it just can not, and will not be done unless the transfers and server overstacking are brought under strict control. And to this account opening of any of the servers that need to be destacked, is right down kittened in every possible form and from every possible perspective except short term only, another round of overstacking them.

This is exactly and precisely what you, A-Net, as devs and administrators needed to prevent from happening in the first place and ever again. But instead you kittened it up hard and now you’ll lose even more players and be faced with even more dead servers.

I know if a few good roamers and a havoc group (NA prime) that would probably move servers but not because its JQ/BG, but because they are tired of their servers in WvW, but do not have the time/money to farm for gold/gems to transfer, so they are stuck.

They also need a challenge in WvW (they are stuck in T3/T4)

The issue is anet’s transfer fees for them and the time they don’t have to farm gold by the time the servers close.

Arenanet: change your population calculation if you still calculate population just by “players”. You are overstacking servers.

a) If I was you I would calculate for every single player in the game the average “participation” point gain (without “roof”) in average per week for last 3 weeks.
Then add together this value for all the players on a server they are currently on and compare those values with the population values in how good they are in predicting the results of a matchup. I would expect this past “activity” on a server to be a good predictor of future results. If the activity goes higher than a limit the server would close. Transfers of very active players (thus having a high activity) on a stacked server, would lead to a server reaching the limit faster.
Maybe you need to adjust it so you substract/add a percentage of the result for the “fairweather effect”, because winning servers will have temporary higher activity in players and participation gain, losing servers will always have a lower one and maybe you need to have an impact of data that is older than 3 weeks to avoid servers not playing before new linkings etc.
b) run similar prediction models for the average playtime in wvw per player per server to see if it is a better predictor than participation and close servers that have too many manhours in wvw.

Not sure if you should communicate the system that you use by the way. People will try to play it if you do.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Since we have been seeing an increase in transfer behavior with the past 2 world links, we are discussing whether we want to change how we calculate WvW world populations or if we want to lower the WvW population caps.

Thank you for the transparency. It means a lot to me. If you could divulge more into this thinking in the future that’d be amazing!

One of the main factors that may or may not be missing in the population cap calculations is coverage. For example if BG has the advantage 50 vs 10 during SEA means a lot more than a deficit of 160 vs 200 during NA. A weighted population cap by skirmish would factor in.

This is nothing but CASH GRAB when you think about it . First linkings we had there was heaps of people transferring to BG/ET , second linkings it was DB/IOJ and third time Mag/BP . And the current linking there was barely any transfers so Anet had to come up with a solution to increase transfers/CASH so they basically opened BG/JQ .

Legit both servers suck in terms of skill level. Bg- only rely on off hours to keep winning and the 24/ 7 ppt squads+bunkering. Like come on people think bg are great but face facts bg has the worst commanders of the top servers. Jq- what can I say gold wins but if they line my pockets with enough gold ima go also.

So at the same time that ANET are running a post about how they are looking into server balancing, and they are suggesting ways to spread the player population out among smaller worlds to make balancing more effective in links…

…They opened BG because its population fell to about the same as the TOTAL of a THREE SERVER linking.

Wow. Just wow.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Blackgate and Jade Quarry both opened because they were below the population cap. Blackgate currently has a smaller population than Jade Quarry and some of the combined linked worlds populations (combined linked worlds population example being Crystal Desert + Darkhaven + Devona’s Rest combined has a higher population than Blackgate). With all that being said, we do keep track of the transfers that happen. Since we have been seeing an increase in transfer behavior with the past 2 world links, we are discussing whether we want to change how we calculate WvW world populations or if we want to lower the WvW population caps.

I love this. They have less population than a T4 server link, yet still number 1 by a long shot and absolutely destroys their competition. It goes to show that they’re the server that has WvW figured out.

XTR.9604:

I love this. They have less population than a T4 server link, yet still number 1 by a long shot and absolutely destroys their competition. It goes to show that they’re the server that has WvW figured out.

Not exactly rocket science… coverage. It was figured out in beta.

So…what Mckenna is saying…The population threshold is Blackgate? err…shouldn’t the population threshold be somewhere on a middle server so people spread out? LIke SBI/NSP? Or since you have linkings, a previously upper silver like FA/YB?

Anyways, give CD/DH/DR + NSP and match us up with T1 already. We need NSP to man the siege.

I dare Anet to match BG with T4 server this Friday.

Xenesis.6389:

XTR.9604:

I love this. They have less population than a T4 server link, yet still number 1 by a long shot and absolutely destroys their competition. It goes to show that they’re the server that has WvW figured out.

Not exactly rocket science… coverage. It was figured out in beta.

Yet in the 4+ years we’ve been in tier 1, we’ve fought against servers that have had superior coverage to us in every respect. Yet we’re still here. JQ at one point was the number one server in T1 for well over a year straight. You don’t have to like us but you can’t deny the resilience of BG over all those years.

We can give you resilience yes, however there was a huge match fixing glicko wall on a false pretense that supposedly T1 had the best fighters. But whenever, a t1 guild downgraded into lower tiers. A lot of them got shrekt because they couldn’t live without coverage. Or when EOTM first came out and precious T1 top tier roamers like Team Riot were in there got destroyed by NSP’s tM.

The only conclusion we can make is that you guys bought up all the crap guilds in lower tiers to continue your coverage wars and your advanced back capping ninja ppt off hour lifestyle.

Anet let the tiers fall apart and the guilds duke it out in their skirmishes. A server is just a city where we could congregate. But there are guilds in t2/3/4 that want to test what they got against the greatest accumulation of crap guilds that thought they were good. A guild might not be able to cover 24hours, but 2-4hour skirmish to prove ourselves is more than enough.

XTR.9604:

I love this. They have less population than a T4 server link, yet still number 1 by a long shot and absolutely destroys their competition. It goes to show that they’re the server that has WvW figured out.

To all those that are confounded by Blackgate’s success as an enduring T1 server: the secret of Blackgate lies in their resilient roamer and militia population that continues to serve as the backbone of the server. Once your typical [insert BIG NAME] guild is done with their "2-hour raid", who do you think takes up the baton and deals with the brunt of the enemy forces for the remaining duration? The days of server dictatorships are long gone. The roamers and militia rule the lands now.

Blackgate recruiting more quality roamers. #BGroamerparadise

Hexalot.8194:

Yet in the 4+ years we’ve been in tier 1, we’ve fought against servers that have had superior coverage to us in every respect. Yet we’re still here. JQ at one point was the number one server in T1 for well over a year straight. You don’t have to like us but you can’t deny the resilience of BG over all those years.

Having the first tournament win and teq revamp kill solidified labeling BG as a winning server. There’s no doubt BG has a tight community even if half of it may have been from buying guilds or bandwagon players years ago (BG didn’t start on top afterall). Even through it’s own set of troubles they still managed to weather those storms and stay in t1, JQ has had multiple storms that they haven’t been able to weather very well, their NA has been suffering for a while, why TW had to go help them.

Every single server has a core of players that stuck to the server through thick and thin, many have had to weather situations worse than BG ever did, like how many have had to lose guilds going up to t1 all these years. You guys are the last super t1 server, you basically won, you outlasted your counterparts. The current era of the game is different, you don’t have to be number one every week because no one cares anymore, people want balanced and fun matchups.

At the end of the day, coverage will always win you this game.
BG Skirmish this week 45 1st, 11 2nd, 0 3rd.

Tyyphoon.5301:

Blackgate recruiting more quality roamers. #BGroamerparadise

XT would happily transfer back if you wanna pay for it. We’ve paid too many transfers at this point, but we’re once again stuck in tier 2 where we don’t want to be. We left Blackgate the because of queues. We left FA because of the terrible T2 match fighting JQ and TC (two of the most boring servers) every week. Now SBI bounced in to T2 and we’re stuck with it again lol… We like roaming T1 and T3, but T2 is just full on garbage to try to roam in. Few fights, most people just run to the nearest siege weapon/tower/keep instead of fighting even outnumbering us lol.

XTR.9604:

Few fights, most people just run to the nearest siege weapon/tower/keep instead of fighting even outnumbering us lol.

That’s what I hear from people from every single tier.

People should stop confusing population with activity. BG has an incredibly dedicated militia force that will go overtime day after day, this doesn’t mean they outnumber another server, it just means they are more active.