Guild Wars 2

Please.
Post X-pac release my server ran 20-25 MAX in Oceanic timezone. You spread that out across the new maps…we have 5 people per map. We are a server that post X-pac would tick 695 in Oceanic. Yes, we’re the ‘tough guys’ on the block with 20 people. You spread those 20 across the new maps…we have 5 people per map. Those 5 people can’t do anything, get bored, and leave. Thus we have 15 people across all maps….and so on.

Everyone was praying for a huge bounce back in server populations with the expansion release. It hasn’t happened. WvW is dead. I just ran for 1 hour across all BL’s and didn’t see a single real human. EXACTLY as I did on RELEASE DAY.

No guilds have reformed and are playing in PVE. Its the same crew from pre release, only now half are in PVE making an already dead game mode which was on life support, well, terminal.

JUST MERGE THE SERVERS and be done with it. Community means nothing when there is nobody to play with or against. My guild wants to rally…we are ready for loot bags. We can’t find anyone to loot!

Pains me to say it but I agree. The new borderlands have sadly turned a struggling game mode into a dead game mode. I run around the bls and EB and there is nothing to fight. PvP is stuffed with balance at the moment and WvW is extinct. Where am I going to find fights? The only reason I play this game is for the thrill of fighting other players in a group with my friends – none of us can stand PvE. The only solution to the current population imbalance is a server merge, at least that way there will be at least some players in WvW. People suggest that WvW will recover in a few weeks but I don’t believe that will be the case and many people on my server agree. The new borderlands are difficult to navigate and far too large to find any decent fights in.

Well i doubt it makes you feel any better but we are in a similar situation in t3. While we have more people it atill isnt enough. Currently in NA primetime it seems like all 3 servers have enough people for one nice sized zerg,. So some times you split up and go take everyones borderlands uncontested but loose your eb. Or you zerg up and push their forces off eb and they split up and go cap your borderlands uncontested.

I guess atleast we have enough people to take stuff and not take forever doing it, so we can at least level up and get merits. But still our servers only have enough people to fight over one of four maps.

Not going to happen. Especially with HoT just out. Even though they’re using megaservers and having named servers is completely irrelevant to 2/3 of the game modes removing any would be a sign that the game is not doing well, and overall that’s not the case. Anet needs to find a solution to undo the damage to WvW brought on by megaservers.

Well said, this topic reserves some attention by the devs!

No. Instead of forcing everyone into something a lot of people don’t even want, tell your server to stop being kittens and gather into one map. Guess what, having other maps have a balanced population outside of the 1 you’re on doesn’t actually make the game more fun. Even if only 1 map is populated, that’s 1 map you can play on and have fun, no different than having 4 maps populated. 25 is enough to make a map fun (ish).

hardly anyone is playing in tier 1, either, server merging the bottom 6 wouldn’t even accomplish much at this point

guys…. this is normal to happen, every one is tunning their new spec and farming the new stats, within time every one will pop into wvw.

Another thing is players are lvling their GH and that will consume also time farming mats.

I think you misunderstood Aeolus.
There is no everyone. Pre release we did not have the capacity to fill a single on of the new BL’s. We run 20 people, max. Nobody NEW has come back…TS averages are about the same if not lower every day, regardless of if those people are in PVE or WvW.
The lower tiers do not have the population capacity to fill the WvW area required to find fights, let alone maintain a decent PPT. Its boring capping empty structures.

Arius you are clearly unable to understand the situation. I’ve already stated we can tick 695 in OCX when we rally with 20 people. We want to WvW against people, not cap empty structures.
People who come out and say ‘tell your server to play properly’ are morons. I’ve been on 3 servers from high to low tiers, playing ‘properly’ has nothing to do with getting fun or winning. WvW is PURELY a coverage and numbers game.

I had this same thought the other day roaming in Kaineng. A few hours and saw noone. Its relatively boring and I just avoid WvW usually. Sure I can cap things, but for what? More reward to be had in sPvP defeating actual opponents.

That are going to megaserver wvw soon so don’t worry.

Please come back in a month and report. Right now, actual numbers aren’t reflective.

Jayne.9251:

Please come back in a month and report. Right now, actual numbers aren’t reflective.

Again a thread where the answer seems to be “stop playing for a month”

That is not the answer players want to see and I don’t think Anet wants to see that either

Jayne.9251:

Please come back in a month and report. Right now, actual numbers aren’t reflective.

WvW has just received its biggest update in years and hardly anyone is using it. The wvw maps are new content. If new content is not being used and people are complaining about it then there is obviously something wrong with it. You say come back in a month when other content has died off but that’s not the issue. The issue is that the new maps are not getting any attention because regardless of size they are not suitable for WvW. People arent playing PvE because its better, they are playing PvE because WvW has gone to the kitten with the xpac.

Argos Helios.4965:

Arius you are clearly unable to understand the situation. I’ve already stated we can tick 695 in OCX when we rally with 20 people. We want to WvW against people, not cap empty structures.
People who come out and say ‘tell your server to play properly’ are morons. I’ve been on 3 servers from high to low tiers, playing ‘properly’ has nothing to do with getting fun or winning. WvW is PURELY a coverage and numbers game.

Unable to understand? I’ve been a WvW purist for three years, since the game launched. Most of that time I’ve spent in t6-7. I know exactly what WvW is like for low tier servers, I know exactly why it can be annoying at times.

I’m going to blow your mind with two facts:

1) The reason why the WvW population hasn’t increased is because of PvE. My entire (pure wvw) guild is in PvE all day. Once the PvE starts to be a little less fresh/enticing, people who prefer open world type pvp will go to do what they can do for a long period of time.

At the absolute least the request being made here is premature because numbers are in flux. At worst it’s irresponsible and ludicrous.

2) 0+0 is in fact zero. You wanna know how much OCX Dragonbrand has? About as much as any t7 server, and they’re the top of t4. Off hours doesn’t improve that much by fusing servers whose primary population is NA.

Yup server merge would be a good idea for the bottom tiers. No way they can fill the new maps.

Agreed with Arius.

Completely wrong time for even considering something as drastic as server merges. They would at least have to wait 1-2 months to get better statistics to base things on.

Also suspect they would rather solve this in other ways than server merges, and guessing they will find a variant use for their MegaServer/EotM technology. No idea how they would do it though.

Knee-jerk solutions are always bad solutions.

WvW was broken before the xpac and is broken after. The “reason of the month” doesn’t need to be brought up at all.

Just merge, or make a new megaserver tier, whatever its clearly broke so fix it.

displayname.8315:

WvW was broken before the xpac and is broken after. The “reason of the month” doesn’t need to be brought up at all.

Just merge, or make a new megaserver tier, whatever its clearly broke so fix it.

Well, it was fairly obvious they where not going to change this before the Xpack, and not right after. Remember that the main dev team should start working on WvW now (according to the big WvW boss), so we’re not going to see anything happening right away.

But I’m going to guess that they have made plans (DCI threads), and made the things we’ve gotten so far with that in mind. So… we will just have to wait and see, until they’re good and ready to reveal what changes they will be making for WvW.

And considering that they specifically wanted to solve Population, Coverage, and PPT (DCI threads). I’m expecting the chopping-axe to the game-mode-as-we-know-it. So I’m just curious what comes out on the other side of the blender, could be good or bad.

megaserver is the way to go.

allows flexibility depending on population popularity

My cousin started to play this game.
He stepped into WvW and called me a kitten.
He told me:
COUSIN: Is this what you like I’ve been running for 2hours and not seen a soul.
What on earth can you do on these maps.
ME: You can fight people and take objectives along the way. its a lot of fun when your with a few friends killing a larger group or sneaking in to take a keep.
COUSIN: He said Wich objectives can i take and who do i fight.
ME: The 2 enemy servers. and atm all objectives are from your team so you can’t take eny.
COUSIN: Is this normal??
ME: I suppose it is now, Normaly its Prime time now and you would see more action.

PS. This is translated from our convosation.

So this is the picture new players get from a 3 year gamemode.
Its dead its empty there is no reason for me to return to it.
Is that what people/anet want?

joneirikb.7506:

Agreed with Arius.

Is it opposite day? Is it opposite day? Is it? Because your post is so clownish otherwise.

Completely wrong time for even considering something as drastic as server merges. They would at least have to wait 1-2 months to get better statistics to base things on.

“Get statistics”. Lol! The standard soulless ANet “method” for “feedback”. You can wait for statistics, but please be advised that to Fortune 500 companies, a psychologist is an even more valuable asset than a statistician. And honestly, you don’t need a psychologist to get a feeling for what people are currently feeling about the new WvW content: They are utterly meh’d. They think the map is just boring and/or poorly designed. At best. At worst, the new map represents EotM 2.0 in all aspects except (still) server-based, and is thus toxic to them.

Also waiting 2 months just to START considering changes, which at ANets tempo would then follow at the soonest half a year later amounts to … yeah. Gamers and consumers don’t like to wait more than half a year for a solution that should be high priority.

Also suspect they would rather solve this in other ways than server merges, and guessing they will find a variant use for their MegaServer/EotM technology. No idea how they would do it though.

This just made me doubt you are actually a WvWer. Megaservers would be the extinction of WvW. It would just become EotM, there would literally be no difference anymore (unless you think the reason EotM is universally despised among WvW circles is because of the map).

The servers themselves need to be drastically reformed into a WvW exclusive system, so pop balancing is not impacted by PvE player count. But yes, this would definitely include merges and would also have to be more flexible in other aspects.

Knee-jerk solutions are always bad solutions.

Are you aware that the exact same WvW problems have persisted for two-and-a-half two-billion-plus-kilometre-earth-around-the-sun-float years? Since the locking of free server transfers?

Jamais vu.5284:

"Get statistics". Lol! The standard soulless ANet "method" for "feedback". You can wait for statistics, but please be advised that to Fortune 500 companies, a psychologist is an even more valuable asset than a statistician. And honestly, you don’t need a psychologist to get a feeling for what people are currently feeling about the new WvW content: They are utterly meh’d. They think the map is just boring and/or poorly designed. At best. At worst, the new map represents EotM 2.0 in all aspects except (still) server-based, and is thus toxic to them.

Also waiting 2 months just to START considering changes, which at ANets tempo would then follow at the soonest half a year later amounts to ... yeah. Gamers and consumers don’t like to wait more than half a year for a solution that should be high priority.

If they just start doing things/changes before they see how people move back and forth between new content with halloween and expack etc, they would most likely end up doing even larger mistakes. In the case of server merges, we could end up with some very badly matched merges. For example Kaineng + Isle of Jantir, two of the servers in bronze with the least NA presence, and best off-time presence. Or even merge together three different servers that would end up filling all queue’s in NA time, and be a waste land at night time. Information is needed, and right now people are moving so much about and trying different things, that it’s the worst time possible to make changes.

Map design is completely separate problem. More interested in what people think of the map one month forward than right now, this forum is incredibly resistant to change.

I do agree that WvW needs a lot of fixes, and that they should have been done 1-2 years ago. But expecting them to start just pushing out changes for changes sake now is not going to do anyone any service. They’ve had about a year since the DCI threads, they should have some plans ready, and now they have the live dev team (once the HoT patching is done I guess).

Jamais vu.5284:

This just made me doubt you are actually a WvWer. Megaservers would be the extinction of WvW. It would just become EotM, there would literally be no difference anymore (unless you think the reason EotM is universally despised among WvW circles is because of the map).

The servers themselves need to be drastically reformed into a WvW exclusive system, so pop balancing is not impacted by PvE player count. But yes, this would definitely include merges and would also have to be more flexible in other aspects.

Just to clear one thing right away, I said what i thought most likely from ANet’s side, and not what I personally wanted.

Anyway, the reason I believe ANet is looking at the MegaSetver/EotM model, is that it will be the most dynamic way to adjust both population and coverage. They’re probably not going to remove servers or go full EotM mode (they said before that they would like to avoid those). But they might find a hybrid solution, like the Alliance system that was kicked around a lot in the DCI threads. Or they might actually combine all servers during time periods so people have someone to fight outside of NA time etc. We will have to see what they do.

Also, with the change earlier this year, Servers are now ONLY WvW population active. No Pve, no EotM, no slumbering accounts, or any other theory people have had over the years. Only the total amount of man hours in WvW.

The server structure itself is inherently not flexible. That is the largest problem with it. I can see ways that server merges could be beneficial, but that also requires several other changes as well, and could end up being a lot more work than simply falling back to a hybrid MegaServer solution.

Jamais vu.5284:

Are you aware that the exact same WvW problems have persisted for *two-and-a-half* two-billion-plus-kilometre-earth-around-the-sun-float years? Since the locking of free server transfers?

Yes.

joneirikb.7506:

If they just start doing things/changes before they see how people move back and forth between new content with halloween and expack etc, they would most likely end up doing even larger mistakes. In the case of server merges, we could end up with some very badly matched merges. For example Kaineng + Isle of Jantir, two of the servers in bronze with the least NA presence, and best off-time presence. Or even merge together three different servers that would end up filling all queue’s in NA time, and be a waste land at night time. Information is needed, and right now people are moving so much about and trying different things, that it’s the worst time possible to make changes.

Map design is completely separate problem. More interested in what people think of the map one month forward than right now, this forum is incredibly resistant to change.

I do agree that WvW needs a lot of fixes, and that they should have been done 1-2 years ago. But expecting them to start just pushing out changes for changes sake now is not going to do anyone any service. They’ve had about a year since the DCI threads, they should have some plans ready, and now they have the live dev team (once the HoT patching is done I guess).

They should’ve had the foresight/intelligence to institute a new server paradigm for WvW with the release of HoT. That they are still not prepared to deal with the problem of ghost town servers and would need another few months and “more data” to decide on the best way, I don’t know how to comment except call it utter, total unprofessionalism on their part. I guess we both agree on this point, but I still find it flummoxing to the max.

I think you underestimate the danger of an empty major game mode, originally the third pillar of the game, during the very biggest release the game has had since launch 2012. The maps should be BURSTING, regardless of Halloween and the new PvE maps. Instead, they are dead, leaving everyone interested in it indifferent in a vicious circle. Once a game mode is dead for a couple weeks, its insanely hard for it to recover, since core player losses during that time are usually permanent or semi-permanent.

They should put out some server mergers now to stave that dead zone off. It’s naive (on ANet’s part) to think WvW will get a player influx 1+ months down the line, during a xpac’s lifetime when most returning surplus players have started going back to other games/hobbies. Nothing will change, it will only get emptier or stabilise on a low level at best.

Of course they won’t do it, because “server merges” PARTICULARLY after a major release is absolutely toxic PR. That is the cross they have to carry for still not having abolished servers. If they had a WvW-specific faction/alliance system or something else, it would sound much less drastic.

Just to clear one thing right away, I said what i thought most likely from ANet’s side, and not what I personally wanted.

Aight, my bad.

Zackie.8923:

megaserver is the way to go.

allows flexibility depending on population popularity

Perfect for EoTM.

Terrible for WvW.

Jayne.9251:

Zackie.8923:

megaserver is the way to go.

allows flexibility depending on population popularity

Perfect for EoTM.

Terrible for WvW.

^this, and eotm should be removed from game, was a nice idea but it does not work, and makes more players that want everything w/o work or fight.

Anet created those bad habits on players, i think we can see from this pov.

Jamais vu.5284:

They should’ve had the foresight/intelligence to institute a new server paradigm for WvW with the release of HoT. That they are still not prepared to deal with the problem of ghost town servers and would need another few months and "more data" to decide on the best way, I don’t know how to comment except call it utter, total unprofessionalism on their part. I guess we both agree on this point, but I still find it flummoxing to the max.

Kinda agree with this. I also think they realized this last year when they started the DCI, but have had all their resources handling HoT. Guessing that the reason WvW crew got the entire dev-team now, is because they’ve been nagging entire last year. Don’t know what will happen, it could break what is left or fix everything, so just waiting to see what happens.

Jamais vu.5284:

I think you underestimate the danger of an empty major game mode, originally the third pillar of the game, during the very biggest release the game has had since launch 2012. The maps should be BURSTING, regardless of Halloween and the new PvE maps. Instead, they are dead, leaving everyone interested in it indifferent in a vicious circle. Once a game mode is dead for a couple weeks, its insanely hard for it to recover, since core player losses during that time are usually permanent or semi-permanent.

Can see multiple sides to this.

I agree that new shiny map should get more people interested. But at the same time the map will stay there. So why not do the new things or the time-limited things ? This has the problem of creating the negative feedback loop you mention of: "nobody is in WvW, so I won’t either". Can only hope that people decide to get back again afterwards.

Also, the new guild hall system (not entirely fan, especially of the +5 supply placement) also affects this a good bit, unfortunately.

I don’t say this is good (or bad, yet), I had expected more people to be fascinated by the new map and play it to death first, not flat out boycott it as is seen.

Jamais vu.5284:

They should put out some server mergers now to stave that dead zone off. It’s naive (on ANet’s part) to think WvW will get a player influx 1+ months down the line, during a xpac’s lifetime when most returning surplus players have started going back to other games/hobbies. Nothing will change, it will only get emptier or stabilise on a low level at best.

I believe they have something planned (upcoming, for when they get the live-devs), didn’t have resources to deal with it pre-HoT. Also, if you start server merges you will also lose people (the server loyalists). Probably the most extreme example, if they remove Sanctum of Rall most of their community will rebel and perhaps even quit the game entirely (Backstory of naming and the GHSC guild).

Jamais vu.5284:

Of course they won’t do it, because "server merges" PARTICULARLY after a major release is absolutely toxic PR. That is the cross they have to carry for still not having abolished servers. If they had a WvW-specific faction/alliance system or something else, it would sound much less drastic.

Agreed.

i didn’t know t6 has oceanic

Jamais vu.5284:

They should put out some server mergers now to stave that dead zone off. It’s naive (on ANet’s part) to think WvW will get a player influx 1+ months down the line, during a xpac’s lifetime when most returning surplus players have started going back to other games/hobbies. Nothing will change, it will only get emptier or stabilise on a low level at best.

Naive is a good word to use in this situation. This has been an issue for years and has never been remedied, an expansion wasn’t going to help this, especially when the map was made increasing larger to accommodate the same player base that was waning already on a much smaller map.

Bioware with SWTOR released to many servers and eventually had to suck it up and merge servers to help the population, that game obviously has no WvW, however the game was improved because of this, while GW2 still has 24/27 worlds with a game mode that requires a consistant player base to make it relevant.

Server merging may cause considerable amount of damage in the short term for some people, even long term. However doing nothing is arguably much worse.

Just make 1 new tier that uses megaserver and leave everyone on their servers.

I keep trying EoTM only to be reminded how bad that map is. New borderland looks so much better, but it does have a steep learning curve.

Cloud.7613:

Bioware with SWTOR released to many servers and eventually had to suck it up and merge servers to help the population, that game obviously has no WvW, however the game was improved because of this, while GW2 still has 24/27 worlds with a game mode that requires a consistant player base to make it relevant.

Server merging may cause considerable amount of damage in the short term for some people, even long term. However doing nothing is arguably much worse.

Key word in your final sentence isn’t “worse”, it’s “arguably”.

SW:ToR had to fuse (mostly) because PvE sucked for the servers. Megaservers take care of that. For those who prefer a 24/7 gamemode you have EotM or high tiers. t1/2 both have servers open to transfer to. Deleting the lower tier servers will destroy a very cultured and appreciated style of play that a lot of people prefer. Not to mention it destroys the culture/identity of each of these unique servers and effectively kills the game for server-loyalists (who do exist, despite the “fiites fites” propaganda you’re prone to hearing on these forums).

Anyone who tells you a server is the same as the other is BSing you, community-wise they’re generally night and day.

Arius.7031:

Cloud.7613:

Bioware with SWTOR released to many servers and eventually had to suck it up and merge servers to help the population, that game obviously has no WvW, however the game was improved because of this, while GW2 still has 24/27 worlds with a game mode that requires a consistant player base to make it relevant.

Server merging may cause considerable amount of damage in the short term for some people, even long term. However doing nothing is arguably much worse.

Key word in your final sentence isn’t “worse”, it’s “arguably”.

SW:ToR had to fuse (mostly) because PvE sucked for the servers. Megaservers take care of that. For those who prefer a 24/7 gamemode you have EotM or high tiers. t1/2 both have servers open to transfer to. Deleting the lower tier servers will destroy a very cultured and appreciated style of play that a lot of people prefer. Not to mention it destroys the culture/identity of each of these unique servers and effectively kills the game for server-loyalists (who do exist, despite the “fiites fites” propaganda you’re prone to hearing on these forums).

Anyone who tells you a server is the same as the other is BSing you, community-wise they’re generally night and day.

You really think i care who i fight against? I just wanna wvw and with deserted bl i cant!

Arius.7031:

Key word in your final sentence isn’t “worse”, it’s “arguably”.

SW:ToR had to fuse (mostly) because PvE sucked for the servers. Megaservers take care of that. For those who prefer a 24/7 gamemode you have EotM or high tiers. t1/2 both have servers open to transfer to. Deleting the lower tier servers will destroy a very cultured and appreciated style of play that a lot of people prefer. Not to mention it destroys the culture/identity of each of these unique servers and effectively kills the game for server-loyalists (who do exist, despite the “fiites fites” propaganda you’re prone to hearing on these forums).

Anyone who tells you a server is the same as the other is BSing you, community-wise they’re generally night and day.

Yeah and now ask 10 WvW people from these bottom servers if they also think these qualities you mentioned trump being able to actually play WvW on a more than infrequent basis.

Your post reminds me of some North Korean situation, where policewomen are assigned to direct the traffic to uphold “orderliness” and a “clean, neat image” of the capital, and which they vigorously do day-in-day-out – when there is in fact no traffic around her at all.

Server loyalty can affect more people than you would think. If you want to move server, but if 2-3 guilds you play with often and like roaming or zerging with stays. Are you still going to move ? For some, the community itself, guilds, friends etc. So even if not everyone is a server loyalist (in the strict sense), they want to play with people that are server loyalists.

We noticed this when my own guild moved to CD to try out the higher tiers. Once we got tired of it and started talking about moving somewhere else, half the guild or more wanted back to Kaineng, because we missed our friends and other guilds etc. (my poor guild leader nearly cried, he wanted so much to move to FC instead).

So many of the people that are loyal to a server, might not mind some server fusions etc (as they would still keep their friends and guilds on the same server). But others would be upset.

And if you delete SoR, at least 50% of their server will leave the game :p (Just rename it to Sanctum of Ranger Rall)

It seems sort of silly. In a thread about how few people play On given servers. The worst theat is, some part of a small number may quit playing.

I Mean I get the idea, no one wants people to quit. But it is still funny.

Jamais vu.5284:

Yeah and now ask 10 WvW people from these bottom servers if they also think these qualities you mentioned trump being able to actually play WvW on a more than infrequent basis.

Your post reminds me of some North Korean situation, where policewomen are assigned to direct the traffic to uphold “orderliness” and a “clean, neat image” of the capital, and which they vigorously do day-in-day-out – when there is in fact no traffic around her at all.

It’s been a recurring theme that most people from low tiers actually are against the merge option. This thread has happened many times over, and it’s usually high tier players arguing against low tier players, high tier supporting merges low tier against it. Again, I’m from Darkhaven, we were in tier 6/7 for over two bloody years. You act like I don’t speak from experience. And no, the game was not less dead for some time periods I was in t6/7, the glicko drought was the single deadest time for WvW in low tiers that has ever happened. Ever, and that was pre tourney 1.

Fact of the matter is, decent population transfers are available for 500 gems. 500. That is incredibly cheap. If people feel their tier is too bad, they can easily leave since the server population changes. Ehmry Bay is beating Henge of Denravi right now, they’re a 500 gem transfer. NSP/Dh/Db have more kills in our matchup according to the kill/death API than t3 itself and we’re only high pop (in fact two t3 servers are only high pop, relatively cheap transfer cost).

Optional opt-in solution is already in place, forcing people to merge when it’s clear most people in lower tiers don’t want that is just the higher tiers forcing their personal opinion on how WvW ought to be played onto lower tiers. Gotta help them poor, defenseless low tier people, they can’t possibly know what’s best for themselves, so force it on them, right?

If you’re low tier and want out, farm gold and get out. Go. Don’t destroy a valid playstyle/server identities for everyone else because you’re too lazy to farm for an hour a day. That’s idiotic on the best of days.

Videles.6759:

You really think i care who i fight against? I just wanna wvw and with deserted bl i cant!

500 gems, grind gold in game and use the currency exchange. Quit being lazy, don’t destroy the game for others so you don’t have to do a little bit of work. Transfers are cheap now, you have literally no excuse.