Guild Wars 2

1. People would take time to adjust to it but I don’t see it as a bad suggestion.

2. All players are allowed to remain on their current world if they so choose.
Also world transfers must be made much cheaper under the new system. Maybe give 1 free transfer every 2 months.

3. Id stay where I am.

Gwaihir.1745:

1. People would take time to adjust to it but I don’t see it as a bad suggestion.

2. All players are allowed to remain on their current world if they so choose.
Also world transfers must be made much cheaper under the new system. Maybe give 1 free transfer every 2 months.

3. Id stay where I am.

Pretty sure this idea wouldn’t work if people could just chose to stay on their current server…. I think this is that “blow up the servers” idea they had awhile back. If people could just stay where they are their is no incentive for servers like BG to de-stack.

I like this proposal quite a bit.

But how would you incentivize people to move off stacked servers? Sure, you did say free transfers, but that does not guarantee them to move. Would they be forced off/kicked?

“The result would be that guilds that want to expand would have an excellent option to do so with a move to these new open worlds.”

How are guilds supposed to recruit for something that is server specific when there no longer is any server specific maps.

As for transfering…. I am already on ET. No need for me, but I do hope that others would go for the new worlds. And as much as I hope that players would spread themselves out, they have already shown time and time again that they would stack servers.

Edit* I guess I would be interested in transfering to free world, in an effort to rebuild a shattered community.

Second Edit* The only way I see this working is if all current servers are destroyed and every one is forced to pick a new one. But this will be a highly unpopular and controversial opinion.

What exactly is the point of creating new worlds simply for the point of making it easier for them to go full? That seems counter productive. This would just cause the same issues we have now, only it would happen a lot faster. Any new world that gets successful will quickly fill up and stay full and force guilds to have to transfer off, leaving very little flexibility in choice of worlds if so many of them are closed. Also some worlds will just become dominated by guilds that will alienate anyone who tries to join in, in order to keep the world from becoming full. This seems somewhat similar to that stupid battlegroup idea, and no way will I ever support that elitist bs.

How would you change linking? What schedule would there be? How would you determine who gets a link?

1. I like it: Lowring the pop cap couldn’t just make it easier to match worlds against eachother, but would theoretically do something about the blob-fights and lag fiestas that the current primetime action consists of.

2. Not sure yet.

3. depending on my guild

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

We wouldn’t force players to move worlds but stacked worlds would have a high chance of never opening for transfers again since we would be lowering the population player cap on all worlds. So for example in NA worlds like Blackgate and Jade Quarry would stay “Full” and wouldn’t be open for transfers unless player started to transfer off.

And if the players on these servers dont move off, we would be facing smaller worlds? Basically we could all stay put and roflstomp anyone forever with this new system.

Here is another idea that several of us have proposed, how about changing the tier structure into a Gold/Silver/Bronze system. Where Gold tiers have the highest population cap and transfer fees, Bronze would have a smaller population cap and smallest fees, and Silver would be right in the middle. Basically change the tiers to cater to our preferred playstyles.

1. Seems like a terrible idea that would just introduce chaos into the matches. Transferring servers is a zero sum game, new servers might get filled but at what cost to others? Every time you had free transfers to servers you had bad results with band-wagoners and more nails into dead servers’ coffins. It’s very demoralizing to see your server sink like a rock because guilds transfer off.

2. If you go that route, there should be a completely new set of worlds with the old ones removed. Create a backend for guild alliances and assign populations based on wvw guilds.

3. Using a free transfer would depend entirely until after things have settled.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

In this scenario, we would allow players free transfers to the new empty worlds for a period of time.

This wouldn’t be fair to servers like Maguuma. They just spent a LOT of money paying for the SOX guild to transfer from JQ.

1. I don’t feel so good about this idea because it’ll end up in diluting the population amongst several maps.
I used to be in a kinda small server, with a “small” linking, and now I’m with a bigger server, and the difference is obvious. When there’s a “random tower is under attack” call, people come and defend. Previously, nobody came, because nobody cared. Most ppl were in EBG, or defending home BL. Of course, now, there’s like 10-20 ppl queue at prime time. But I’m sincerly wondering what’s best : 10-20ppl queue, and ppl actually playing a disputed fight, or no queue at all, and BL mostly empty with some random roamers flipping camps, and sometimes towers, because that’s all the population a server can afford.
I understand having more figures make things easier to sort, link etc. But players aren’t figures, and neither is WvW. Maps are still a big thing, and to me, they’re designed to be ran by a specific amount of ppl at the same time.

2. If new worlds were te be created, the number of tiers should remain the same to prevent the issue I’m quoting in 1. Random idea : big identified guilds should be asked whether they agree to be moved from a server from another as a tweaking convenience. May not be such a good idea.

3. No

THE ONLY WAY this could work would be to 1st offer free transfer to a new world But to also offer gems to reimburse the person for what they spent to go to a bigger established server once they completed a transfer to a new world. These changes would be huge and people who have done wvw a long time should be able to put in their 2 cents and be listened to. Also if you make a new world give it a cool name and give it a mascot or something and use some gw1 gw2 lore for a basis.

1. I don’t agree with this proposal. I feel that high tier servers will just hold on to their population rather than moving off to another new server. If guilds in established servers want to grow, why don’t think just do that in their own server rather than a new server? Making new servers would mean that you would have to work from scratch to grow a community and could see conflicts there. We have 24 servers in NA – why don’t we work with what we have rather than making new worlds? It’s possible to promote lower population servers in NA and balance out what you have first.

2. I would focus primarily on working with the established servers we have now. I recommend having incentive to go to lower tier servers. At its current state, there is not much incentive for a guild to go to a T4 matchup compared to T1. I believe that if ANET wanted to spread out the numbers for better matchup balance, they could do so with our current WvW servers.

Also, sure you can match similar population vs similar population. However, at WvW’s current state, I believe that skill level and zerg fighting makes a huge impact to scoring and outcome. For instance, if there is a server with a higher kill/death ratio, they are more likely to win more skirmishes and have a better outcome in the end of a matchup.

3. I would not consider moving. Would rather stick with [LION] and [SNKY] as my guild [Maki] enjoys working with these guys.

X T D.6458:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

We wouldn’t force players to move worlds but stacked worlds would have a high chance of never opening for transfers again since we would be lowering the population player cap on all worlds. So for example in NA worlds like Blackgate and Jade Quarry would stay “Full” and wouldn’t be open for transfers unless player started to transfer off.

And if the players on these servers dont move off, we would be facing smaller worlds? Basically we could all stay put and roflstomp anyone forever with this new system.

Yeah that could defo be a problem…

Hmm. I quite like the idea of more worlds although I personally will never move from the server I chose back in beta. If we are still going to have (in NA) four tiers of three servers, though, doesn’t that mean we end up with a few single-name worlds and the rest are a hodge-podge of, what, six or more linked worlds? Given the issues over a) server identity and b) name confusion you’re trying to address in the other thread, isn’t this going to make those problems even worse?

This all seems to be getting ridiculously over-complicated now, though. If it takes this kind of manipulation behind the scenes just to get the basics working maybe it really is time to consider stopping the whole thing and starting again from scratch.

1. How do you feel about this proposal?

Very classy ANet I personally would have never thought of this to be a option. How ever this at least in my head would completely make sense, only if EVERYONE’s server was blown up and was forced to transfer(For free).

2. What, if anything, would you change about this current proposal?

I don’t truly know what I’d change. Maybe have a option for guilds to get all of their current active WvW members on the same server enabled?

3. Would you be interested in transferring to a new free world?

ABSOLUTELY! Where do I sign up for this. I’m tried of paying IRL money to get on servers that have ethics completely opposite of mines, just for me to be completely alienated, and once again looking for a new home. At least now with the server’s populations cut in half I will only have to worry about getting zerged down while roaming half as much. And it will not matter if the server I’m on and my ethics clashes with each other as I will be able to be more self sufficient via less players to zerg me down.

1 – I think this will only work if all the existing servers are replaced with the new servers. There is no incentive to move servers currently and you problably would only see a small portion of people willing to move to a whole new server. Thus having more “dead servers” than you already have.

2 – As I said above: Remove all existing servers from WvW poll and make people choose a new server from the new ones if they want to go to WvW. New players also should be allocated on the old servers (no access to WvW) and only pick a new one when they decide to go unto WvW.

3 – Only if the current servers cease to exist. I see no point in doing so otherwise.

First and foremost: This is a wall. But it’s deeply Analytical.

I really do appreciate the communication and intrigue into trying to solve the scoring and stale matchup problems. I’m also not really sure if it really solves the core problems with why we see runaway scores, though.

Quite frankly, it doesn’t really reflect reality that much, either.

Fundamentals to why we have Runaway matchups:
- Timezone coverage/player distribution
- Organized guilds

The timezone coverage issue doesn’t end up changing. Certain groups will still contribute disproportionately to a given server’s score. Unless you force servers to split up (WHICH WOULD BE HORRIBLE. DO NOT DO THIS.), you’re still going to see coverage imbalance and people stacking for off-hours. Any server that ends up splitting will just be at a bigger deficit compared to those that don’t, and the only incentive to splitting is re-stacking to make a stronger low-tier server move up ranks. The problem is this already happens and has happened, and has lead to what are still stagnant matchups.

Thinning out players across servers won’t do much for the latter, either. Even if particularly strong servers destack for a period of time, guilds, which are the driving force of winning WvW, will eventually cull out other servers, and people will transfer and re-stack to follow the winners, just like now. Then you’ll just have more servers and more links being needed to be performed, which while it works mathematically from a strictly player count perspective, does not work from an organizational/performance perspective. The re-stacked or newly-stacked servers will be led by huge organized guilds with potentially very little link influence that are dominant in WvW. Its opposition will feature similar numbers, but none of the groups will be organized.

The way it currently is, it actually makes more sense from a balanced-matchup perspective that the team featuring the sides least-likely to win and facing the biggest community-merging issues (Which of the closely-ranked servers’ Teamspeak should be used?/Which server really deserves to be the host?/other misc community problems), which further reduce the likelihood of winning.

The big issue with WvW right now is that the problems with the format are so deeply nested in other aspects of the game and are so entrenched in the nature of the format itself that fixing them at this point requires very surgical and complex procedures.

The model you present is simplified to convey a point, but take a good look at the actual numbers between each server. I doubt that between any two adjacently-ranked servers (granted this metric is very hard to gather now with links) the gap is as substantial as 20%. It’s likely single-percentage within tiers, maybe a little more at each tier step. The combinatorics don’t lie in that 27 servers is already plenty to make a ton of combinations. I think doubling-up would probably end up just confusing the system more by putting in extra bloat of pairings that look good on paper but don’t reflect what’s actually happening in-game.

To get a better understanding of the reality of WvW versus what’s happening mathematically, I highly suggest you try an experiment. I know it’s not good practice to meddle in the affairs of players for the most part, but I think this is a necessary evil that would benefit everyone greatly, especially if you announce it as an experiment to learn more about WvW.

Make an announcement you’ll be leading a given T1 server during prime hours. Get some pugs, don’t use some kind of communication media, and attack the opposing servers’ keeps or try and fight them with what you have. This organization and proficiency of commanding on that scale is perhaps what you might get from those mid-tier servers and large groups of hodge-podge players being forced/matched up together. You should still have roughly even numbers, potentially moreso if you hype it up. No disrespect, but you’re likely going to not get very far. Groups who have dedicated hundreds/thousands of hours to being the best of the best are going to continue to be. Evening the playing field for more “fair” player distribution doesn’t really mean much when the organization is so scattered, and communities so fragmented. We’re already seeing big complaints about community fragmentation. I think that’s the bigger priority for getting servers to be more stable; on some level, they need integrity and identity back. This keeps people in cohesive units between matchups and would enable servers to build up with what they have, rather than what they depend on from the higher-tier ones, to then immediately be shut down on the next re-link. Server chat and a two-to-four-letter code title for server membership identification would go a long way, I think, in helping revitalize failing communities.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

We wouldn’t force players to move worlds but stacked worlds would have a high chance of never opening for transfers again since we would be lowering the population player cap on all worlds. So for example in NA worlds like Blackgate and Jade Quarry would stay “Full” and wouldn’t be open for transfers unless player started to transfer off.

Sooooo basically the same situation they’re in right now….
Yeah this would change nothing.
Pass.

Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365:

X T D.6458:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

We wouldn’t force players to move worlds but stacked worlds would have a high chance of never opening for transfers again since we would be lowering the population player cap on all worlds. So for example in NA worlds like Blackgate and Jade Quarry would stay “Full” and wouldn’t be open for transfers unless player started to transfer off.

And if the players on these servers dont move off, we would be facing smaller worlds? Basically we could all stay put and roflstomp anyone forever with this new system.

Yeah that could defo be a problem…

Honestly, I don’t think it would turn out that way. Gonna use some random numbers to represent what I belive it would happen.

Let’s consider that the new servers have half of the capacity of the old servers. Since BG is full we can say BG have 200% population, thus remaining full until it go below 100.

Arena Net will problably try to form alliances that can be competitive with that population using the new worlds. So they could pick somenthing like a 3 world link with 80+70+70 to form a 220% to compete with the 200% from BG. The biggest deal is that this link can go as far as 300% population completely overwhelming the oposition which cannot grow.

Next thing we would see would problably be the players from BG complaining that their server is closed and facing multiple open servers when it was pointed out why they are closed. And nothing Arena Net could do about it unless the players destack out of it, somenthing that they refuse to do.

Honestly, the best way is to remove all servers from WvW and only let people on the new ones to participate on it. So this kind of scenario is avoided.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

If players on the bigger worlds don’t transfer but other worlds do, we could still end up with better pieces to create more balanced matchups. For example say World 1 is 120% of our population goal and World 2 is 100% and our smallest world is 50%. If we were to link the smallest world with World 2, then World 2 would be at 150% and now is much bigger than World 1 creating a matchup that isn’t competitive. However, if the smallest world split their population creating a new small world that is 20% we would have a better world to link with World 2.

Tiers would still remain the same as they are currently. We wouldn’t be adding new tiers along with the new worlds.

I’m assuming in the time it took to make this post you missed what I wrote above. I highly suggest you read it, as it might give some better insight as to why the idea doesn’t make matchups any more or less competitive.

What if someone could be part of 2 servers : 1 old server and 1 new server. It give people a chance to try it out and to get things going.

1-Good
2-Destroy all current WvW servers and start fresh
3-Yes

1. I vote no because of anets complete ballsing up of links many times so far and their completely lack of transparency in why links are done. As an ocx player I have no faith that alliances with ocx players would be matched together just for example.

2. If you want to go to this extent to revise the WvW system why not go back to the battlegroup design?

3. No I would not move but I would be in favour of the battlegroup proposal I referred to in 2.

It’s impossible balance things if there isn’t any good reason try to win. I would rather fight 2 hours/day seriously than 24/7 pointless karma training. Of course there could be game mode for players who actually like to play WvW seriously like it should be played.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

If players on the bigger worlds don’t transfer but other worlds do, we could still end up with better pieces to create more balanced matchups. For example say World 1 is 120% of our population goal and World 2 is 100% and our smallest world is 50%. If we were to link the smallest world with World 2, then World 2 would be at 150% and now is much bigger than World 1 creating a matchup that isn’t competitive. However, if the smallest world split their population creating a new small world that is 20% we would have a better world to link with World 2.

Tiers would still remain the same as they are currently. We wouldn’t be adding new tiers along with the new worlds.

Balanced as in population wouldn’t solve much. Sure, you can have even population matchups, but if established servers that have high kill/death ratios play against a group of 3-5 world linkings, the established server would still have the upper hand. At WvW’s current state, kill/death ratio really impacts skirmishes. Not only does having a high kill count help out your score, but it also keeps your PPT at a reasonable level especially if groups are capable of killing enemy zergs in defense.

I hope this new worlds will avoid servers over stacking bandwagon , just like a simple Math solution ,Addition to fill empty servers, Division is to divide 3 zone EU/NA/OCX equally .

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

If players on the bigger worlds don’t transfer but other worlds do, we could still end up with better pieces to create more balanced matchups. For example say World 1 is 120% of our population goal and World 2 is 100% and our smallest world is 50%. If we were to link the smallest world with World 2, then World 2 would be at 150% and now is much bigger than World 1 creating a matchup that isn’t competitive. However, if the smallest world split their population creating a new small world that is 20% we would have a better world to link with World 2.

Tiers would still remain the same as they are currently. We wouldn’t be adding new tiers along with the new worlds.

That’s all hypotheticals, what incentive is there to transfer off. This would basically appeal to some guilds that would rather play together, nothing wrong with that, but what purpose does it have to those guilds that want to be part of a community. This idea just hurts those who don’t want to split off and isolate themselves from everyone else.

Now I understand why it could make your jobs easier to equalize each servers population, which will never happen because of attrition, transfers, and new players. But trying to force people off at the threat of closing off their world forever and forcing them to be reliant on a link is not a good way to go.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

In this scenario, we would allow players free transfers to the new empty worlds for a period of time.

This wouldn’t be fair to servers like Maguuma. They just spent a LOT of money paying for the SOX guild to transfer from JQ.

Maguuma paid nothing for the SoX transfer, do not use our name for your argument.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

1. How do you feel about this proposal?
2. What, if anything, would you change about this current proposal?
3. Would you be interested in transferring to a new free world?

Honestly I was hoping you’d revisit the idea – because it allows people to form alliances without being stuck in one world.

If possible, I’d suggest these linked servers actually be created by guild alliances, but I know that’s a tall order.

I’d immediately transfer to one of those worlds.

New worlds would be pointless if you do not delete the old worlds. Noone will go to worlds if there are no good commanders there.

1. How do you feel about this proposal?
I’m not sure. The whole ‘smaller pops’ and ‘everyone linked’ thing just leads me to think we’ll be in queue hell. It feels like it could work, but something about it feels off.

2. What, if anything, would you change about this current proposal?
I would say kitten it and blow up all existing worlds. Make everyone choose a new home, and start this over fresh. I think it’s the only way it COULD work. Erase glicko, erase it all. Turn it off and on again.

3. Would you be interested in transferring to a new free world?
See above. Otherwise, what incentive would I have to do so?

1. I don’t think this would work because WvW’ers are mostly casual now and just go omniblob everyone. If the opportunity is there to completely ktrain a smaller server they will do it nonstop. Pretty much killing the experience of the smaller worlds. On that point too, because they are mostly casual, and there is no incentive to move to a smaller world or play in other ways that isn’t blobbing, why would they?

2. This would be a good idea if you reset ALL servers to 0, like blow it all up. The problem then becomes timezone differences, which probably don’t matter to 80% of the people here because only NA matters right? But, you’re likely to lose your WvW population that isn’t in NA (talking about NA servers), as they would be left facing overly stacked opponents or tumbleweeds and pvdoor, then get backlashed by their NA server mates/enemies for “night capping” or losing everything. If you can manage to address all these issues then it should be fine (borderline impossible because I don’t think your metrics account for timezone activity) I guess it will all even out if off hour players quit entirely (which is getting there).

3. I wouldn’t be interested in transferring as I am one of these “off-hour filthy nightcapper how dare you play when I’m asleep” population. I will only go to where I can interact with those that play my timezone (enemies and allies), that is the biggest limitation on players like me.

A couple points.

First, guilds aren’t looking for space to expand, they’re looking for PEOPLE to recruit. There is a reason that most of the surviving large WvW guilds are in the upper tiers, because that is the only place they can replenish numbers and maintain themselves. WvW guilds die on lesser populated servers. You’re not going to get WvW guilds to move of their free will unless you can guarantee them a population to recruit from. These new empty servers would be the death knell to an already dwindling supply of WvW guilds.

Second, reading between the lines and looking at Tyler’s post, and remembering the leaked notes on Reddit before world linking went in, the conclusion is pretty obvious.

This is an oblique way to bring Battlegroups into the game. You might still call these 50% smaller servers “servers”, but they’d in practice just be a couple guilds(maybe approaching that 1000 man cap that Battlegroups were rumored to have) and would essentially be Battlegroups.

Now, I am all for Battlegroups, anything to make WvW more alive and less stale. But if the Reddit leaks were accurate Battlegroups were going to go in with a couple other features. Battlegroups(or small servers if we want to call them that) would be able to shake up their rosters every 8-12 weeks without costing gold or gems(Very crucial to creating new match-ups and recruiting new players). And more importantly the existing server structure would disappear and be replaced.

Creating these small servers without these other features would not be ideal at all.

Don’t be afraid to shake things up. WvW needs a shake up.

bambam.7243:

1. I don’t think this would work because WvW’ers are mostly casual now and just go omniblob everyone. If the opportunity is there to completely ktrain a smaller server they will do it nonstop. Pretty much killing the experience of the smaller worlds. On that point too, because they are mostly casual, and there is no incentive to move to a smaller world or play in other ways that isn’t blobbing, why would they?

2. This would be a good idea if you reset ALL servers to 0, like blow it all up. The problem then becomes timezone differences, which probably don’t matter to 80% of the people here because only NA matters right? But, you’re likely to lose your WvW population that isn’t in NA (talking about NA servers), as they would be left facing overly stacked opponents or tumbleweeds and pvdoor, then get backlashed by their NA server mates/enemies for “night capping” or losing everything. If you can manage to address all these issues then it should be fine (borderline impossible because I don’t think your metrics account for timezone activity) I guess it will all even out if off hour players quit entirely (which is getting there).

3. I wouldn’t be interested in transferring as I am one of these “off-hour filthy nightcapper how dare you play when I’m asleep” population. I will only go to where I can interact with those that play my timezone (enemies and allies), that is the biggest limitation on players like me.

Not sure about the casual bit. The havoc scene died with HoT between objectively terrible class balance/elite spec design, the absolute systematic dissaseembly of small guilds’ presence in WvW, and the desert BL. Blobs, though, seem bigger and badder than ever before.

Which is why hitting the reset button also doesn’t work. Plus, let’s be real here: unless this happened unannounced (which would be absolutely terrible), the serious players would all figure out a new server to stack for maximum coverage and blob presence, anyways, or people would go on mass-transfer shuffles a few months in to build up the next big-bad full-coverage blobby server.

Just building on the above post, WvW action only happens when there are commanders/guilds willing to lead. When that isn’t available, it doesn’t seem to matter how many people are on, hardly anyone does something. There doesn’t even seem to be any new commanders or guilds willing to do this anymore either. There is almost no incentive to do so. Probably speaking more into my experience here, though.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

If players on the bigger worlds don’t transfer but other worlds do, we could still end up with better pieces to create more balanced matchups. For example say World 1 is 120% of our population goal and World 2 is 100% and our smallest world is 50%. If we were to link the smallest world with World 2, then World 2 would be at 150% and now is much bigger than World 1 creating a matchup that isn’t competitive. However, if the smallest world split their population creating a new small world that is 20% we would have a better world to link with World 2.

Tiers would still remain the same as they are currently. We wouldn’t be adding new tiers along with the new worlds.

I would suggest not doing any of these and working on a 3 faction wvw system, with enough unique maps to host it properly, after the next xpac is finished… Keep all servers as is, build a 3 faction system, use individual server linking to balance out the 3 sides. Move any individual servers to rebalance as necessary.

Y’all still have time to compete with Camelot Unchained, and that game is going to rock anything GW2 has to offer on the RvR/PvP front currently… Better game engine to handle mass battles, classes and skills designed specifically for pvp combat, better stealth mechanics, tons of sand box features… and the list goes on… Lots of players are waiting for the predecessor to DAoC, which inspired GW2 WvW, so please properly reinvest in WvW and professions.

Please have the team do some research on the above and have a serious talk with MO.

Think about this too… https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Suggestion-Living-WvW-updated

Maybe do a 4 week test run to see how it works. if wvw pop in general drops, revert.

This is a very strong proposal, and I think that the WvW guilds will thank you for it. For pugs and native players I think this is a blow to them and foreshadows the loss of guilds which will hurt them, which although isn’t an issue for me personally will be a huge challenge to overcome and work through.

If I could make 2 observations though,
1: These new worlds are likely to be populated with majority guild groups. nature of the beast, and I think you’re aware of this. This will mean that to create match ups that are not only population balanced but also TIME ZONE balanced (read- pairing a server with, for example, 2 oceanic guilds against servers with 3 oceanic guilds to avoid blow outs in that time and to create a fun tier for those guilds) is going to take a lot of insight. To be frank, I’m not sure how much insight you have in to this.

Notoriously out of touch with the WvW community and for not making contact, the match ups are likely to be absurdly bad for many guilds. Please, make contact with more players, create a guild sign up sheet on these forums for people to post how many and what time they run, along with where they are, and pair them in to match ups against similar Timezone guilds. For NA prime this becomes more about making sure there’s a healthy balance of guilds that consider themselves fights and PPT, and not overstacking any pairing with either of these, to keep scores and fights fun for the whole community.

If that’s too hard, then at least contact prominent commanders and players as you did in the past about changes, but this time broaden your scope and get in touch with more people, have conversations with metabattle staff, EU GvG tournament organisers, streamers, and server community website leaders, people of that nature.These people invest hundreds and thousands of hours to the community and the game mode and have very large contact pools, they’re in touch with the players to a very large degree.

2: much shorter- but as people have suggested abolish current servers and make everyone re select. HOWEVER, to not alienate players, if they are currently on a server let them get back to it even if it becomes full, so they don’t feel rushed to log in and get in first. Although you might say ’what’s the point’, many more people are likely to transfer if they see this, I’d predict maybe a 10% increase, just because they see the free option and think why not.

TLDR engage with the WvW community more and this will be a huge success.

Haha you are doing it wrong….

Just look at gandara, we might have high population but most of them are pve so doing wvw against some other servers (which are more wvw oriented) while outnumbered most of the times isnt fun anymore.

World population does not mean that most of the population is doing wvw…

Your math is broken.

You say that people wont be moved off their current world (server) then what would new worlds change? you will still have people on here complaining of stacked worlds or queues or timezones, nothing would really change,

As servers now are only used for WvW why not just open up free transfers between servers say once a month and see what happens,

I don’t particularly want to get pushed out of a world or get locked out of one because it suddenly becomes full, when ive been playing with the same people in WvW for 2 years+

What exactly would the new populations be, lowering it doesn’t seem to have worked before, if you lower it, people will just stop playing WvW, you cannot force someone to play on a low pop world if all their friends are elsewhere.

I personally don’t have an issue with the current linking system, on EU it seems to hav brought a lot more battles, and less siege humping, im all for open field battles.

Ragnarox.9601:

Haha you are doing it wrong….

Just look at gandara, we might have high population but most of them are pve so doing wvw against some other servers (which are more wvw oriented) while outnumbered most of the times isnt fun anymore.

World population does not mean that most of the population is doing wvw…

Your math is broken.

Actually, no, you are mistaken. This was originally the case, but server population is based solely on WvW participation. This was changed a LONG time ago.

Here is another issue, how would a smaller population make it possible to provide coverage across timezones. This would make it difficult for any real or serious attempt to organize or coordinate groups on a server. The split between guilds and militia would just make it more difficult for guilds to recruit.

I will say it again, battlegroups are a disaster of an idea and smacks of elitist bs that alienates the core of a server. Keep wvw open for everyone. You already have linking, tiers, servers. You dont need to blow anything up and hope for a different result, you dont need to cater to a small group of guilds. You need to improve how you implement features like linking, and work on better utilization of tiers and servers.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

We wouldn’t force players to move worlds but stacked worlds would have a high chance of never opening for transfers again since we would be lowering the population player cap on all worlds. So for example in NA worlds like Blackgate and Jade Quarry would stay “Full” and wouldn’t be open for transfers unless player started to transfer off.

DEAR McKenna:

did you really play WvW at JQ and BG ? (wvw dying now, outman buff for 3map )

Anet use hand to close Server now. WvW population decide is lie

Because Blackgate try work off WvW for two weeks but Server still full.

" BG already close 3 months. let’s go 108 years like Cubs "

WE ARE ~ We are CubsGate \0/

So….. why would i move my guild to a much smaller new world with less players to recruit from if I want to expand it as opposed to a full server?

I’m going to repeat something I brought up the last time a similar topic came up:

If I’m going to consider moving a guild, I’m going looking for a couple of things.

A welcoming community where my guild is wanted and is considered an asset.

Other guilds that will be good partners to coordinate with.

Community cohesion.

A place where multiple play styles are welcomed.

Good use of teamspeak and cc.

A place where we can become a valued part of the community.

A new world that I know is going to be moved around every couple of months isn’t going to provide that.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Hypothetically-Speaking-New-Worlds/page/4#post6175053

So unless an alliance of guilds decides to populate one of these smaller worlds, I don’t see it working out well.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

1. How do you feel about this proposal?

It won’t work.

In order for populations to self-balance and keep rebalancing, there have to be incentives to move from full worlds and/or dominating teams. The only mechanic that’s done that to date is server linking, but only because it allows people to bandwagon to a full/dominating team via the secondary world.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

2. What, if anything, would you change about this current proposal?

There need to be incentives to volunteer to move and likewise the cost of moving has to change. In PvP and PvE, there is a volunteer bonus; WvW should have something similar.

Instead of looking at population alone, the cost-to-move formula should look at population + immigration/emigration + glicko + glicko volatility + current score. For example, it should be cheaper to move to a low score server that is losing glicko and that is losing people to other worlds. If people are bandwagoning to BG, then the cost to move to BG should be higher than the other 2-3 servers in its glicko tier.

The volunteer bonus should be something like Power of the Mists, without any impact on score. For example, +WvW reward or +WvW ranks or +Magic Find.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

3. Would you be interested in transferring to a new free world?

As stated in the OP, not a chance. I like that I know commanders and most of the militia that play when I do. I like most of them, too and I can’t imagine a better scenario made up of PUGs, especially since those going to a new world are more likely to have strong expectations about what happens.

This worries me. I don’t WvW with a guild, so I rely on the bigger guilds to be commanding. If those guilds decided to move to a new server, it could seriously gut WvW for me.

Is it not possible to match servers based on WvW participation? If a server is 50% full, but only 5% of people play WvW, matching them with a server that is 70% full wouldn’t necessarily make for an unfair matchup for a server that is 80% full, but has high WvW participation (for example).

Anet, I believe you are taking a wrong approach. This is a band aid on a gaping wound. Instead of getting balanced mathcups by lowering server population caps you should be focusing on bringing in NEW players into wvw to fill up the smaller server.

How to do this? One very very simple answer, wvw only legendary backpiece and more unique wvw only skins.

Personally, I don’t think wvw only skins will ahve enough “oomph” to get many new players in, but a long grinded wvw only backpiece will.