Guild Wars 2

The current system isn’t working but I don’t see how this would change anything. Why would anyone want to give up their server or position for an empty server? For example, why would a guild on Mag, BG, or JQ move to some new server when they already have good things going for them. If they did left, its going to cause issues with balance from the get-go. My guild could contact all the other fight guilds and just stomp everyone when we move to our new server. We only care about fights so PPT wouldn’t mean anything so coverage wouldn’t matter either. We would just mow down everything during NA prime to the point it wouldn’t be fun for anyone. Then we are in the exact same situation we are in now.

Linking servers to raise population then adding more servers to shrink it down/even it out. It just doesn’t make that much sense.

yeah I am having a real hard time seeing why guilds or solo players would ever want to move to new empty worlds without some serious incentive. Maybe I am just missing something but are there really that many people locked out of full worlds & separated from their guilds right now? You would have lower the WvW map population caps as well as the world population caps to induce any sort of de-stacking and even then queue on reset nite alone are not going to be enough to back some of those bandwagons out of their castles in the sky.

I hate to say it, but this is a ship that left the dock years ago and I don’t see any easy way of getting it back. A nuclear “start it all over, all new servers” option might extend my interest in WvW for a time but like so many point out, without major drive and intervention from ANET we’d right back here again in rather short order so what is the point? Not even sure why I care anymore, only play enough to get my kicks here and there theae days so it probably wont make much difference to someone like me either way.

I do agree that our current system does not work. However, I am certain the purposed idea will change very little. Here are the flaws I see:

• Many people not all just want an easy bag train. Staying on the stack servers guarantees that experience remains the same. There is no incentive for these people to change server.

• Most higher tier servers just have better off hour coverage. At prime times and reset everyone I have faced in tier 1 & 2 have the numbers and good fights, it’s the off hours that decide the rest of the match. Having smaller servers changes nothing, as there will still be coverage problems. Unless somehow you force all the SEA/OCA guild to specifically move to them.

• Most people are content with their current server & community, there is no incentive to leave those ties.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

We could achieve more balanced competition in a world-versus-world setting if we had more pieces to join together with the World Linking System. It currently is not possible for us to establish an “equal” number of players on each link/world with the current world sizes. You may recall this initially was mentioned by Tyler a few months ago.

For example, world populations currently look something like this:
• World 1: 95%
• World 2: 82%
• World 3: 81%
• World 4: 60%
• World 5: 30%
• World 6: 10%

Since our final world total needs to be divisible by 3 because we need a team for each color—Red, Blue, and Green—we either need to avoid linking any of the worlds, or link some worlds even if the result is that they have the advantage of a larger population.

• Worlds 1+6: 105%
• Worlds 2+5: 112%
• Worlds 3+4: 141%

After linking, the difference in population between the highest and lowest teams is much narrower, but the third rank server still has significantly more population than the server that previously was ranked first. Also, the result of this theoretical world linking is that all worlds are now above our goal population cap, and probably have moderate to heavy queues.

If we instead had twice as many worlds, but if each had about half the population, it would be much easier to create linked teams with similar populations. This would lead to better matchups for everyone, and encounters would be less predictable. In this scenario, we would allow players free transfers to the new empty worlds for a period of time. These worlds would start out linked so that they wouldn’t begin in an empty state in a match-up. We would lower the player population cap on all worlds so that more worlds would become and stay “Full.” 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.

Having outlined some of the thinking behind this proposal, we’d like your feedback on these three topics.
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?

Hi, the problem with this suggestion is how are the inflow of players gonna be? Guilds need people to strive and if no people, they can’t strive. Newbies will hardly choose those “empty” server, they will often choose the higher populated server. In such a case, guilds will not prosper, your proposal will fail in long run. Unless there is a way to get newbies to choose the empty server or allow newbies to choose a server at later time, small to medium sized guilds will not choose to go to that empty server. Likewise, big guilds will unlikely to go there since they might have established a sphere of influence in their servers, able to recruit or invested much in attracting players.

Also, this proposal is asking for volunteers to give up something to go to a risky environment with unknown futures. Not many will be willing to do so, especially if guilds want to stay competitive, able to recruit surely. Better option will be just blow it all up for equal start.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but is the following scenario possible with this proposal?

1. Keep Top 3 Servers Locked (Forever?).
2. Make Lots of Tiny Servers that take turns at Linking to the number one WvW Server.
3. Setup a Schedule to Weekly Change which Tiny Server is Lucky & gets to be Linked with the number one WvW Server.
4. Charge Players a Transfer Fee to move to the Lucky Tiny Server that gets Linked to the number one WvW Server for the week.
5. Rinse & Repeat as needed

This is the essence on what I feel will trend if this proposal is implemented. Fixing it would probably require more complex manual procedures or counter-mechanics that might be counter productive to your other coding efforts. Actually…this trend is already happening…imho

How can we build & encourage a healthy competitive game mode based on the above?

For a Better Long Term Solution to WvW – Try a Google Search for – wvg world vs globes

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Having outlined some of the thinking behind this proposal, we’d like your feedback on these three topics.
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?

1. Absolutely. I support more worlds.
2. Transfer mechanics as a whole.
3. Personally, no. I’m on a Tier 3 server that I have been on since launch and am happy where I am.

If I were designing tranfers from scratch:

First, I’d do away with the instant transfer. All transfers would happen once each week, right before the matches reset (NA/EU transfers would complicates this, leaving this for now). During the week, you could login to the website (this doesn’t need to be in the client) and see the current activity levels of all worlds as a percentage of the population cap. You could choose from there to transfer to a different world, and pay your gems if necessary. At any point during the week before the transfer happens, you could cancel it and get your gems back.

Don’t force players to make a choice that your matchup system created. Don’t force players to play on empty maps. Don’t force players to change servers to accommodate your architecture.

People have less incentive to play if you control the outcome. You negate each players contribution.

I believe the World system should be designed with the following 3 main changes:
(Please note that all 3 changes must occur together for this to work)

1. Whenever a server population falls under a certain threshold that is about half of another server’s population, it should be completely MERGED with another server who also hit that threshold.
For example: Sorrow’s Furnace hits a 40%, while Fergusson’s Crossing hits a 30%. Jade Quarry is at 80%. Sorrow’s Furnace absorbs Fergusson’s Crossing completely and now becomes a 70% server. Fergusson’s Crossing gets deleted. The higher population world remains(in this case Sorrow’s Furnace).

2. Whenever a server population goes higher than a certain threshold, it should be offered server SPLIT. A new World is created and only those people of this server(and perhaps another server who also went too high) are offered to transfer to the new World for free. Of course, a visible cap is placed on how many more people can transfer to the new World, in such a way that people can monitor whether they can move their whole guild or not(83 spots left, my guild has 120 people, let’s not move). They have 1 week to do so. Also announce it early so people can plan ahead.
For example: Blackgate is completely packed full. A new World is now created named Mad King Realm. Only Blackgate people are offered to transfer to Mad King Realm, until Mad King Realm reaches a decent population size. The transfer is free, it cannot have a cost for obvious reasons.

3. Finally, to encourage people from Full populations to transfer out for free when given the option to do so, there will now be a lower CAP on the number of players allowed in WvW at the same time. This is important to ensure that people do move if they really want to WvW. To provide fair matchup, the 2 other worlds will also have said cap for that week.
For example, let’s say we currently have a 100v100v100 maximum number of people that can be fighting each other per map. Blackgate is Full. Blackgate is currently against Maguuma and Jade Quarry. Their matchup now becomes a 75v75v75 maximum number of people per map.
This is better for the matchup as well. For example, if Maguuma does not have the numbers to reach 100 people per map, but does have the numbers to reach 75 people per map, they can compete better against Blackgate at a 75v75v75 matchup, and Blackgate cannot just zerg their way out of it anymore too by winning through sheer numbers. When said Blackgate players get frustrated that they cannot enter WvW and have been queued for 5 hours, they do have the option to transfer out to the new world Mad King Realm.

After some weeks, things will average out to multiple servers that have been merged, new servers that have been created with a nice population, and old servers that kept a healthy population.

When I bought GW2 I was expecting WvW to be these massive populated battles between armies. Instead it’s sparsely populated and you could spend hours without encountering another player, or, just run in zergs killing unguarded npcs. I don’t think we need smaller populations per server. I think we need less servers. Right now the experience I’m getting with WvW is the opposite of what I’d thought I’d get.

Interesting thread. How are you determining “population”?

Let me establish a few terms. For me …

“Population” is total server population. This is a very different, in some cases much bigger number than “WvW Population”.

“WvW Population” is the combined number of players who play in both the Mist War and Edge of the Mists.

“Mist War Population” is only the players who play in the Mist War. This is EBG and the three Borderlands and excludes EotM.

“Edge of the Mist Population” is only the players who play EotM and who avoid the Mist War. Let’s not shy away from the fact that there is snobbery and insecurity in both of these last 2 populations towards the other. I personally do not see why, I play both.

Arenanet almost certainly have the metrics in place to determine all of these populations. Now there is a time variable, of course. Population changes during the course of the day. Some servers have good night coverage, others only have population during prime time.

If you calculate population distributions on each server for each of the populations, you might find you get closer to balanced population overall. You will never be 90-100% accurate, because as soon as a subpopulation takes a 2 week vacation, the number become less than the ideal.

This might sound like a bit of a headache, but I consider this to be the first step on the development of a very complex population-balance algorithm, and not trying to be confrontational, but I consider the development of this algorithm to be the job of the WvW team. Not wanting to put too fine a point on it, but this is an essential part of WvW balance. Maybe it seems like a 4-year PhD thesis, but I would bet other MMOs have done analogously complex algorithm development already.

As for “encouraging or discouraging people from moving” … I think this needs to be given careful consideration. I would never use “never” to block people moving to a full server, because maybe that full “population” server has a low “Mist War Population”. Case in point: my server, The Seafarer’s Rest.

In order to establish suitable population baselines, you might consider a “WvW week” or “WvW Month” in which you encourage people to play actively. Maybe you need events, Arenanet Devs actively playing (even on EU servers) online and possibly even prizes .. .possibly … maybe. Make it clear to the WvW population that these population baselines will form the basis of your population algorithm

2 cents respectively submitted,
Adzekul of The Seafarer’s Rest

Only way players will fill up new worlds is if it’s led by an popular guild or commander that pug commands, or there’s bonuses to lure them there. Otherwise not much point leaving your currently established server and community. The proposal does make sense with it comes to making better population links, not so much for coverage, but I just don’t think enough players are willing to go along with it without heavy incentives.

If guilds or players are willing to make the jump to the new servers, what are you willing to give them for making that leap? a unique backpack skin, or unique finisher or weapon or armor skin, extra loot or stat bonuses? Gonna have to come up with a good lure to hook the fish.

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?

From an objective I think it won’t work:
Currently many top tier servers have their own dedicated WvW groups and guilds. Changing the server layout could ruin this community completely.
In addition, on the more populated servers we currently have a waiting time to enter WvW (like EB). Increasing the population will only increase this OR you need more players in WvW.

Lastly, from a personal opinion: Since top tier servers aren’t full any longer, many people decided to pay up to 1800 gems for a server transfer to play with their active WvW guild.

If you suddenly change the whole layout and offer free transfers, I for instance would like back the 1800 GEMS I spent 1 week ago!!!

Many good issues raised by experienced players who are addressing the topic, especially the players who are commanders and guild leaders with a much clearer reality of WvW and a higher awareness of what a server needs to survive.

There is an imbalance in skill, leadership and timezone coverage in this game right now. A four tier system at this stage of the game be can’t sustained with the above three factors. Discussing a destack of healthy servers to put the balance in the hands of anet is a disaster waiting to happen.

The simplest solution moving forward is to look seriously at leadership and timezone coverage and figure out how many servers worth of leadership and coverage can exist in a healthy way? It’s not healthy to have 1 commander carrying long hour gaps, it creates a huge vulnerability to a server. Extreme example: DK from YB can cause YB to be in T1 when he plays or T4 when he doesn’t. I suspect 2 tiers is where we are right now.

SkyShroud.2865:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

We could achieve more balanced competition in a world-versus-world setting if we had more pieces to join together with the World Linking System. It currently is not possible for us to establish an “equal” number of players on each link/world with the current world sizes. You may recall this initially was mentioned by Tyler a few months ago.

For example, world populations currently look something like this:
• World 1: 95%
• World 2: 82%
• World 3: 81%
• World 4: 60%
• World 5: 30%
• World 6: 10%

Since our final world total needs to be divisible by 3 because we need a team for each color—Red, Blue, and Green—we either need to avoid linking any of the worlds, or link some worlds even if the result is that they have the advantage of a larger population.

• Worlds 1+6: 105%
• Worlds 2+5: 112%
• Worlds 3+4: 141%

After linking, the difference in population between the highest and lowest teams is much narrower, but the third rank server still has significantly more population than the server that previously was ranked first. Also, the result of this theoretical world linking is that all worlds are now above our goal population cap, and probably have moderate to heavy queues.

If we instead had twice as many worlds, but if each had about half the population, it would be much easier to create linked teams with similar populations. This would lead to better matchups for everyone, and encounters would be less predictable. In this scenario, we would allow players free transfers to the new empty worlds for a period of time. These worlds would start out linked so that they wouldn’t begin in an empty state in a match-up. We would lower the player population cap on all worlds so that more worlds would become and stay “Full.” 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.

Having outlined some of the thinking behind this proposal, we’d like your feedback on these three topics.
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?

Hi, the problem with this suggestion is how are the inflow of players gonna be? Guilds need people to strive and if no people, they can’t strive. Newbies will hardly choose those “empty” server, they will often choose the higher populated server. In such a case, guilds will not prosper, your proposal will fail in long run. Unless there is a way to get newbies to choose the empty server or allow newbies to choose a server at later time, small to medium sized guilds will not choose to go to that empty server. Likewise, big guilds will unlikely to go there since they might have established a sphere of influence in their servers, able to recruit or invested much in attracting players.

Also, this proposal is asking for volunteers to give up something to go to a risky environment with unknown futures. Not many will be willing to do so, especially if guilds want to stay competitive, able to recruit surely. Better option will be just blow it all up for equal start.

To add on, even if you lower the overall cap, closing up servers and therefore increasing the servers status. The inflow numbers will always be limited and it will still be shared across the numerous servers. Then, it will also eventually reach a timeline where all servers eventually be opened due to decline populations, the incoming players will be spread to a wider range of servers then.

A solution that can work for long term, flexibility to handle the increase and decrease of population is more preferred.

I don’t usually post but I have seen so many posts that do not seem informed about the current way WvW population is calculated. Please see this post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/World-Population-Changes-Are-Coming

They have been calculating sever population based on WvW player data for more than a year.

Also, do keep this in mind, new players, be it pve or wvw or pvp or pvx type of players, will all be shut out of the server as long as the server is full. That is also to say that the empty server naturally does not even have any non-wvw population to tap into while the older servers do have non-wvw populations to tap into. Therefore, the risk factor is much higher in the new servers than the old servers. This is some of things that leaders have to consider when moving their guilds and deciding the value of the proposal, in the perspective of their guilds’ future.

Personally, I think it is much more realistic to give incentive to players to move down to current lowest populated servers while systemically reducing all servers’ cap than to open new servers.

Just another thought hit me. You are probably speaking of the overall population of the servers, not just those people mainly playing WvW….
So if you introduce a couple of new servers give PvE players a small incentive, like a 1 week magic find buff. this way you not only get more spread populations but also could assume that those are not WvW core gamers and count them even as a smaller WvW percentage when linking worlds.

the New Worlds System like " XXX leave Anet to Amazon "

Lemony.9180:

I don’t usually post but I have seen so many posts that do not seem informed about the current way WvW population is calculated. Please see this post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/World-Population-Changes-Are-Coming

They have been calculating sever population based on WvW player data for more than a year.

Oh just didn’t see your post. Good to know and therefor my just posted idea is crap ^^"

Thx

1. I doubt it’ll be easy to convince people to switch without providing enough incentive. It’s not always only about the people in the same guild, not everyone is in a hardcore wvw guild. But this plan probably only needs some people to move off, so I guess that’s good enough.

Though if people do destack, this is a great idea. Even if some do, coverage gaps still would be absolutely kitten.

2. I’m not a bit fan of permanently closing servers, new friends playing won’t be able to join, and good luck to me to convince everyone I already play with to transfer off the server. If possible, probably should let absolutely new player with 0 ap join any servers. (and get that $$$$$$$$ for people who would buy more new accounts just to get into the server)

shameless promote my post on coverage https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Suggestion-A-better-way-to-balance-coverage/

3. I don’t play prime time, so I’m always skeptical about whether I have people to play with. I also have people I already play with on the server (unless they change, then maybe). So no, unless I’m convinced.

I’ll offer this up again as it touches on some of gripes in this thread…close all the servers, incentive guilds/people to move to new servers, control server population, no need to link:

- Develop a rank ordered list of all guilds based on average # members in WVW over a period of time by time zone
— NOTE: WVW guilds only.to qualify, guild must have XX% of members playing WVW on an average of XX% of play time over the same period of time
- Contact guild leaders of top 12 and incentivize each to move guild to one of the 12 new worlds.example: #1 NA guild goes to world A and # 2 NA guild goes to B, etc.; #1 SEA/OCX guild goes to #12 and #2 SEA/OCX guild goes to #11.rinse repeat until all WVW guilds are placed
— Increase drop rate for ascended stuff
— Easier path to legendary
— Faster siege crafting
— You figure it out…people like free stuff
- Contact guild leaders of next 12 and, in reverse order, incentivize each to move guild to one of the 12 new worlds
— Guild leaders sign a contract with the world to stay 12 months…breach of contract results in repossession of incentives
—- If guild disbands, moving rewards repossessed
—- If individuals move, incentives are repossessed
—- If guild WVW activity falls below a predetermined level, incentives are repossessed
- Contact guild leaders of “small” guilds and incentivize them to “round out” the population of each world
- Players opting not to move with their guild are to be removed from the guild and enter “New Player” status as explained below
- Players can belong to only one guild at a time
— Players seeking to move between guilds must obtain approval from both
the losing and the gaining guild leadership or petition the Overseer for approval
— Players may retain “bank guilds” but bank guilds will be limited to one player only (this needs work)
- ANET must assign a Dev as World Overseer to each world
— Arbitrate disputes between guilds…GVG in an arena as a possibility to settle disputes with losing guild loses something to winning guild…might need to develop a penalty schedule
— Adjudicate individual requests to move between guilds on a specific world, if needed
— Keep guild leaders informed of contract progress
— Keep guild leaders informed of game developments and changes
— Seek input from guild leaders on health of the world
— Work with other overseers to coordinate guild transfers between worlds to maintain population balance
—- This may include overseers “incentivizing” a guild/guilds to move once again
—- Overseers will coordinate with guild leaders to try and place guilds desiring move to worlds that exhibit similar, or needed, play styles (e.g.: move a “hardcore” guild to a world lacking such; a roaming guild to a world lacking such, etc)
- NEW PLAYERS: allow new players, or players who have spent less than XX% of
a significant period of time in WVW an opportunity to guest into each of the worlds for 1 week before declaring a home world
— World Overseer will, weekly before each reset, post a list of “new players” on the world for guild leaders to contact and, hopefully, recruit
—- Players can remain as PUGS on their declared home world if they so choose
— Players opting to not declare a home world after 12 weeks will be locked from WVW until they choose to declare
— PVE guilds can “try out” WVW under the “new player” rules to declare a home world

krmatth.3904:

1. SEA/OCX guild goes to #12 and #2 SEA/OCX guild goes to #11.rinse repeat until all WVW guilds are placed

There aren’t even 12 OCX WvW guilds left in the game lol.

I think this makes sense, the more worlds, the more granular control anet have to better balance matchups. I wouldn’t leave my current server unless all my guild left and the transfer was free.

Can NA WvW link with China WvW ?

china have huge Sea player. It’s good for blance

elementalest.1679:

I think this makes sense, the more worlds, the more granular control anet have to better balance matchups. I wouldn’t leave my current server unless all my guild left and the transfer was free.

This “add more servers and make it all equal” will never work. Ever. There is zero possible chance that both anet and players will be able to divide out all players evenly. The best they/we can hope for is 3 faction wvw, with more maps and comprised of current individual servers, with individual server relinking to balance as need be. Anything else is a fail.

Jerry CCH.9816:

Can NA WvW link with China WvW ?

china have huge Sea player. It’s good for blance

yea best, close down NA servers. Lets all move servers to China.

But on a serious note, it’s probably impossible, due to many many issues.

I would aslo add 4. Lower map cap by 10 (at least on EB) to reduce skill lag when all 3 servers meet. Other than that it might be interesting to see the result of this. Just bring it before 2018 :P

I’d personally love to see ‘worlds’ removed, lets be honest they lost their meaning when megaserver was introduced, Instead lets have a district system in PvE/PvP like gw1 and for WvW lets have a 5-way Human vs Norn vs Charr vs Asura vs Sylvari. That would be fun.

Swagger.1459:

elementalest.1679:

I think this makes sense, the more worlds, the more granular control anet have to better balance matchups. I wouldn’t leave my current server unless all my guild left and the transfer was free.

This “add more servers and make it all equal” will never work. Ever. There is zero possible chance that both anet and players will be able to divide out all players evenly. The best they/we can hope for is 3 faction wvw, with more maps and comprised of current individual servers, with individual server relinking to balance as need be. Anything else is a fail.

I don’t think you get the point of this proposal. You don’t need all servers to be equal. Even if the new 3 or 6 servers only have 5-10%(or some statistics whatever) of total wvw population. it just needs to be more spread out so anet can better link servers more equally.

Why not WVW on one Map? Add more (Guild)Servers and all are Happy. Dont forget to lower the GEM price for Transfering. And BTW there should be a (Alliance)system like EoTM only with one TIER for the plebs.
Really, it will leads to nothing…

Eddbopkins.2630:

I don’t know if this is possible but if its stupid I’ll delete the post.
Why not have one world where there is no wvw, there should be enough room on each server for the people stuck on the wvwerless sever to transfer if they want to wvw. This is just a thought that crossed my mind.

Current worlds:
• World 1: 95%
• World 2: 82%
• World 3: 81%
• World 4: 60%
• World 5: 30%
• World 6: 10%

Linked worlds:
World 1: 95%
World 2&6: 92%
World 4&5: 90%

World 3 would be no wvw.

that’s not stupid.

it is like so many others MMORPGS: you can choose servers pve related or the PvP ones.

We have also differences between EU and NA. In EU the campaigns to fill up all time zones are not that prominent. The national servers prevent this to certain extent.

You would need very alluring things to encourage people to move to new servers. For me it would be a legendary set or a gear set where i can change my stats ooc but not visual effects.

I would suggest a kind of tournament as a betatest where all WvW players have to register for worlds to take part. Severs have low quotas and need links. This would be controlled field for experimetation and collecting feedback.

1. How do you feel about this proposal?

I’m happy you are focusing on the server population issue. This proposal magnifies the downsides of world linking:

• Loss of world identity
• Meaningless matchup victory (you got carried by ANet linking your server)
• Meaningless leaderboards

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

The proposal is necessary if you want to more balanced matchups and still hang on to the world linking system. But is doubling the worlds enough? Quadruple? Or maybe this system is just not worth it.

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

No.

Why dont you add some tactics to WvW that can help smaller group win the larger instead of balancing the population? i usaully think that it would be fun if we could do an ambush strategy with only 6-10 ppl to the blobs. Adding some reward that can make people loyal with their servers even if they are in the low tier of WvW would be good.

Ps it’s just my point of view

fewfield.7802:

Why dont you add some tactics to WvW that can help smaller group win the larger instead of balancing the population? i usaully think that it would be fun if we could do an ambush strategy with only 6-10 ppl to the blobs.

That’s probably one of the reason why they keep increasing the strength and variety of sieges and ignore most of the QQs. But if 6-10 ppl can kill a blob of 30+, that wouldn’t be balanced, just on the opposite scale. Keeping them away or stopping them from taking structures is a good enough balance imo.

ThunderPanda.1872:

Swagger.1459:

elementalest.1679:

I think this makes sense, the more worlds, the more granular control anet have to better balance matchups. I wouldn’t leave my current server unless all my guild left and the transfer was free.

This “add more servers and make it all equal” will never work. Ever. There is zero possible chance that both anet and players will be able to divide out all players evenly. The best they/we can hope for is 3 faction wvw, with more maps and comprised of current individual servers, with individual server relinking to balance as need be. Anything else is a fail.

I don’t think you get the point of this proposal. You don’t need all servers to be equal. Even if the new 3 or 6 servers only have 5-10%(or some statistics whatever) of total wvw population. it just needs to be more spread out so anet can better link servers more equally.

Nobody is going to spread out and play nice. We need to 1 up Camelot Unchained and beat it on all fronts or don’t bother. Anet has to reinvest in wvw, improve professions, have better combat systems inside pvp modes, make factions, upgrade/fix engine for mass combat, offer kick kitten rewards, update wvw and spvp regularly… The devs need to market wvw and get more people playing, not micromanage the overall low wvw player base.

The devs need to put a mass effort toward a new wvw after they release the next xpac, and slowly plan and prepare “things” for it now with the current skeleton crew.

Swagger.1459:

ThunderPanda.1872:

Swagger.1459:

elementalest.1679:

I think this makes sense, the more worlds, the more granular control anet have to better balance matchups. I wouldn’t leave my current server unless all my guild left and the transfer was free.

This “add more servers and make it all equal” will never work. Ever. There is zero possible chance that both anet and players will be able to divide out all players evenly. The best they/we can hope for is 3 faction wvw, with more maps and comprised of current individual servers, with individual server relinking to balance as need be. Anything else is a fail.

I don’t think you get the point of this proposal. You don’t need all servers to be equal. Even if the new 3 or 6 servers only have 5-10%(or some statistics whatever) of total wvw population. it just needs to be more spread out so anet can better link servers more equally.

Nobody is going to spread out and play nice. We need to 1 up Camelot Unchained and beat it on all fronts or don’t bother. Anet has to reinvest in wvw, professions and combat systems for pvp… make factions… upgrade/fix engine fir mass combat… improve rewards… The devs need to market wvw and get more people playing, not micromanage the overall low wvw playerbase.

I agree with you on reinvesting and promoting WvW, which is kinda what they’re doing now? So they need to do both really – which includes balancing population. This is why I think server linking is a lot better than merging – more flexibility. And to make WvW great again, they need to balance and micromanage the playerbase? There will always be some people who will transfer, they don’t need too much for this to work. Should probably give some incentive for people to do that? idk free gold? free badges? +50% on reward track? idk But I know that $rewards$ > everything to most players.

As long players are transferring arround like crazy it will be impossible to achieve any kind of population balance via linking, no matter how many worlds there are. More smaller worlds just mean more opportunities to join stacked server links for cheap.

Even if it would be possible to create exactly even numbers via linking, this theoretical balance will be destroyed within a week because of transfers.

ThunderPanda.1872:

Swagger.1459:

ThunderPanda.1872:

Swagger.1459:

elementalest.1679:

I think this makes sense, the more worlds, the more granular control anet have to better balance matchups. I wouldn’t leave my current server unless all my guild left and the transfer was free.

This “add more servers and make it all equal” will never work. Ever. There is zero possible chance that both anet and players will be able to divide out all players evenly. The best they/we can hope for is 3 faction wvw, with more maps and comprised of current individual servers, with individual server relinking to balance as need be. Anything else is a fail.

I don’t think you get the point of this proposal. You don’t need all servers to be equal. Even if the new 3 or 6 servers only have 5-10%(or some statistics whatever) of total wvw population. it just needs to be more spread out so anet can better link servers more equally.

Nobody is going to spread out and play nice. We need to 1 up Camelot Unchained and beat it on all fronts or don’t bother. Anet has to reinvest in wvw, professions and combat systems for pvp… make factions… upgrade/fix engine fir mass combat… improve rewards… The devs need to market wvw and get more people playing, not micromanage the overall low wvw playerbase.

I agree with you on reinvesting and promoting WvW, which is kinda what they’re doing now? So they need to do both really – which includes balancing population. This is why I think server linking is a lot better than merging – more flexibility. And to make WvW fun again, they need to balance and micromanage the playerbase? There will always be some people who will transfer, they don’t need too much for this to work. Should probably give some incentive for people to do that? idk free gold? free badges? +50% on reward track? idk But I know that $rewards$ > everything to most players.

The devs are theorizing a mathematical fix, but that’s not going to happen. They should plan and prep stuff now so a big team effort can be made to bring us wvw 2.0 after the next xpac launches.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

As long players are transferring arround like crazy it will be impossible to achieve any kind of population balance via linking, no matter how many worlds there are. More smaller worlds just mean more opportunities to join stacked server links for cheap.

I actually think they should return to a fixed transfer cost now like how it used to be, it’s becoming more and more irrelevant after server linking came into effect.

I call bs.

No matter how many servers you people implement, it will still happen what has always happened since day 1 of this game: people will migrate to top tier servers and the rest will stay empty. Don’t you realize it’s as if you unlinked the current servers? It would be the exact same thing, and you people seem to want to it in order for the few dedicated wvw people to leave the game so the only ones that’re left are casuals.

Also, you could just cap the number of migrations to 2 or 3 every 3 months or something like that. That way you assure that people don’t bandwagon from server to server just to farm, but I guess you won’t since that’s your only way of getting money from us players (in WvW at least). Maybe you could JUST ADD MORE BORDELANDS TO THE GAME so there are no dead borders and people don’t have to wait 1 or 2 hours in q for Eternal Battlegrounds in top tier servers.

Either way, it makes no sense to add more servers since just a few more than before will fill up and the rest will stay as they are, dead.

Just saying, please think about what you guys want to do to WvW, because you’ve been killing it since the game launched and been patching it so only pve people that just want to siege up behind a keep play the game.

And please, FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE, pay attention and care about what players want and complain about in this forum. It’d be nice, you know (not what you did with Sacrx 6 months before the game launched: he warned you guys that culling was incredibly bad and you managed to go 2 years after launch without patching it. Disgusting).

Swagger.1459:

We need to 1 up Camelot Unchained and beat it on all fronts or don’t bother.

Lolwat? It’s Camelot Unchained that need to 1 up WvW or fail. People have been threatening WvW with how awesome CU is supposed to be for 3 years now. Nothing has happened. WvW has lived it’s life and anything else is a bonus.

But anyway, tbh I think it could work with more but smaller servers. At least in theory. The small conditions that I would like to see would be:

1) kitten using servers, lets finally scrap that. Make it guild alliances (player guilds would be subguilds) and have us visibly represent these across all game modes. A color in a matchup would be a batch of alliances and they would all be seen ingame (objective claims, which players belongs to which, etc). Lets us show where our allegiance lie with pride.

2) Transfers need to be free for anything below high population.

And that’s pretty much it. Have 30 “servers”, 60, 90, I dont care. #1 solves the identity part and #2 solves the money grubbing transfer costs.

I have a brief understanding for your idea McKenna, but i could sure you have no any understanding on current situation in Tier 1 or the World with high population.

First of all, as per other players mentioned above, how could you ensure the players could transfer off from the World with high population?
No, you can’t.
In fact, players prefer the World with higher population and abilities, most of the existing players at Tier 1 could not transfer off. They only transfer from a Tier 1 world to another Tier 1 World.

Second, the unclear definition of “World Population” is another long outstanding problem. Let me show you a example:

World A and World B have a equal number of 100 players.

World A Situation:
- 80 ppl are WvW based guild member, they usually play WvW, which as known as the heavy players
- 20 ppl are PVE players or non WvW based guild members, they play WvW for daily achievement or relax only, they only play WvW when they are free or bored.

World B Situation:
- 20 ppl are WvW based guild member, they usually play WvW, which as known as the heavy players
- 80 ppl are PVE players or non WvW based guild members, they play WvW for daily achievement or relax only, they only play WvW when they are free or bored.

McKenna, how do you think the above example?
You could answer me both World have same population.
Yes, you are right, this is the fact, but only shows in numbers only, it’s meaningless.
The situation of these two worlds remain unchanged.

I could told you the situation of that two world is definitely different.
World A has more WvW based guild member, i could understand their combat ability is more organized and they have better discipline, of course, their efficiency and contribution to their World is relatively higher.

Oppositely in World B, only few of them are WvW based guild member, they have to take the risk from the remaining non WvW based guild member. They cannot organize their fights well because they hard to control the performance and attendance of WvW players.

Therefore, it cause the result of World A and World B get same population, but World B have no any benefit on the fights. Or i could say that the ability of World A and World B is extremely different. One more thing, World B cannot improve their ability forever, because they World is FULL!
Do you think it is ridiculous? Why they have to fight under pain because of the unfair situation?

McKenna, i could tell you that all the survey data you saw is faked, it could not show the actual situation. Anet had destroyed WvW once in terms of these data, please don’t let it happen again.

Thanks

Not sure if I understand this. I have some questions.

1. So now EU has 27 servers. Would we have 54 in the future?

2. At the moment the 27 servers are divined into 15 Linked Worlds and 5 matchups. How many Linked Worlds we would have in the future?

3. How many servers can be linked together? Is 3 max?

if the nuclear blow them all up is ever considered, you cant retain the old servers to be repopulated – too many will feel hurt they didn’t get back to their home and will question how others DID get back to their home (which was the same)……

• World 1: 95%
• World 2: 82%
• World 3: 81%
• World 4: 60%
• World 5: 30%
• World 6: 10%

Why are we linkings first server when its almost full.

• World 1: 95% (let them alone)
• Worlds 3+6: 91%
• Worlds 4+5: 90%
• World 2: 82%

This is more balanced than your sample.

viikatemies.5347:

Not sure if I understand this. I have some questions.

1. So now EU has 27 servers. Would we have 54 in the future?

2. At the moment the 27 servers are divined into 15 Linked Worlds and 5 matchups. How many Linked Worlds we would have in the future?

3. How many servers can be linked together? Is 3 max?

same here, I have no idea

Thx for your this!

Liston.9708:

will question how others DID get back to their home (which was the same)……

Well that’s because of the ajust BG thread indicating behind the scenes favours (blah) and non-response from Anet.

Very disappointed about that.

1. I like this proposal
2. Cap the amount of times u can xfers
3. Yes I would

Having more worlds with half the population is great as it would reduce blob sizes and make matchups more interesting and refreshing

Peppel.9736:

viikatemies.5347:

Not sure if I understand this. I have some questions.

1. So now EU has 27 servers. Would we have 54 in the future?

2. At the moment the 27 servers are divined into 15 Linked Worlds and 5 matchups. How many Linked Worlds we would have in the future?

3. How many servers can be linked together? Is 3 max?

same here, I have no idea

Thx for your this!

+1

Anrkides.4083:

• World 1: 95%
• World 2: 82%
• World 3: 81%
• World 4: 60%
• World 5: 30%
• World 6: 10%

Why are we linkings first server when its almost full.

• World 1: 95% (let them alone)
• Worlds 3+6: 91%
• Worlds 4+5: 90%
• World 2: 82%

This is more balanced than your sample.

And the matchups?

World 1 vs World 3&6 vs World 4&5

World 2 vs NOTHING vs NOTHING ?

The number of servers needs to be divisible by 3 : ) as stated in the opening post.