Guild Wars 2

I appreciate the work you guys have done on WVW lately, I"m on black gate and it’s been way more fun past month or two then it ever was before (I came back just before HOT came out). But I am very concerned for the long term health of existing WVW communities (servers like BG that naturally rank in the top 4 tiers) because you’re only allowing transfers to T5-8 worlds.

What really makes gw2 special for me compared to other RVR games I’ve played like Elderscrolls Online is the existence of organized server communities with several good guilds, server teamspeak and commander coverage outside of guild raid times. Communities like Black Gate need new recruits to stay healthy as players take breaks from the game, burn out ect. I’ve seen first hand what happens when a good guild breaks down because there’s no supply of new players…..it really sucks and makes your entire playing experience unpleasant to see a group slowly dying to circumstances outside their control.

It’s really frustrating you’re strangling the strong WVW communities to support a bunch of dead servers that have been on life support for eons now. Transferring to servers that are full of non-competitive players and “band wagoners” who want to play alongside winning servers isn’t viable IMO for any serious WVW player. I never had a problem with Anet locking high tier servers that got really full compared to others, but now you’ve gone and locked out transfers to literally every real WVW server.

WVW is the reason I stick with GW2, the reason I spend gems on bank space/bags/ crafting. But I’m not going to stay with a game mode where my options are limited to a) organized servers that are going to die a slow death from lack of new players or b) dead low tier servers that you guys are forcing players onto. I’m really disappointed how much you’re disregarding the play experience of serious WVW players who want to play with a strong guild vs other strong guilds.

Please reconsider locking the real kitten servers that actually earned the rank. Those are the servers that can give a really good WVW experience – and the places where transferring players/guilds is actually viable. It’s the organized servers that make GW2 stick out vs other games, killing off those servers will severely hurt the mode in the long run no matter what other changes/improvements you make. And keep in mind, lot of the serious players are actually in playing the game not spending all their time trying to counter ideas on the forums.

TLDR;

I have no problem with locking individual high population servers. But locking ALL servers above T5 is IMO a serious problem, it’s penalizing servers for doing well at wvw by cutting off their flow of recruits regardless of the situation each individual server is in. Anet is IMO cannibilizing the entire community of healthy wvw servers to feed a bunch of servers that died.

This is some absolutely delicious bait. Good luck with your fishing expedition.

Don’t forget to push for a tournament while you are here.

u shld do ur homework before asking for something like this, ur reason is rather personal than a logical one.

T4 I think should probably be unlocked, T3 maybe. T1/2 not so much.

The purpose of locking the top 12 servers is to try and move some population back to the bottom 12 servers, so that it will be easier to link servers in the future. If you unlock the top 12 which are the primary servers for matchups, players will only choose to move to those over the others.

Having said that, it seems like they’re messing with server caps now, as Ehmry Bay which was on High (I found that hard to believe especially after we lost 2 large guilds plus more), we’re now on Very High status with no word on any guilds moving in….. so what’s going on there? and how is the server suppose to grow being in the locked T4 tier and full cost to transfer to.

P.S Kaineng and Anvil Rock are still medium servers attached to T1 servers, lol.

SkyShroud.2865:

u shld do ur homework before asking for something like this, ur reason is rather personal than a logical one.

I do have logical reasons for making this post. I’m not against population locking individual servers, but universally locking every sever above T5 is a really bad idea. There aren’t enough WVW players to maintain 24 servers…..cannibalizing healthy competitive servers to prop up dead ones is penalizing players for doing well.

I don’t think it’s trolling to say that existing WVW players who want a change and newbies shouldn’t be forced onto the lowest tier servers. What I keep reading on the forum from players in T5-8 is that they enjoy having a very small community and aren’t focused on getting larger. So why leave those servers as the only open ones? If smaller guest servers decide to get organized and grow….and end up drawing players from host servers that way, great.

Serith.3712:

SkyShroud.2865:

u shld do ur homework before asking for something like this, ur reason is rather personal than a logical one.

I do have logical reasons for making this post. I’m not against population locking individual servers, but universally locking every sever above T5 is a really bad idea. There aren’t enough WVW players to maintain 24 servers…..cannibalizing healthy competitive servers to prop up dead ones is penalizing players for doing well.

I don’t think it’s trolling to say that existing WVW players who want a change and newbies shouldn’t be forced onto the lowest tier servers. What I keep reading on the forum from players in T5-8 is that they enjoy having a very small community and aren’t focused on getting larger. So why leave those servers as the only open ones? If smaller guest servers decide to get organized and grow….and end up drawing players from host servers that way, great.

Thanks for clarifying. If you are not against locking individual servers that has excessive high population and interested about the long term well being of the wvw, then that similar complains have been made pretty much everywhere on this WvW forums but there isn’t anything being done about that yet, to put it bluntly, it has been ignored which I assume due to community barriers.

Serith.3712:

I appreciate the work you guys have done on WVW lately, I"m on black gate and it’s been way more fun past month or two then it ever was before (I came back just before HOT came out). But I am very concerned for the long term health of existing WVW communities (servers like BG that naturally rank in the top 4 tiers) because you’re only allowing transfers to T5-8 worlds.

What really makes gw2 special for me compared to other RVR games I’ve played like Elderscrolls Online is the existence of organized server communities with several good guilds, server teamspeak and commander coverage outside of guild raid times. Communities like Black Gate need new recruits to stay healthy as players take breaks from the game, burn out ect. I’ve seen first hand what happens when a good guild breaks down because there’s no supply of new players…..it really sucks and makes your entire playing experience unpleasant to see a group slowly dying to circumstances outside their control.

It’s really frustrating you’re strangling the strong WVW communities to support a bunch of dead servers that have been on life support for eons now. Transferring to servers that are full of non-competitive players and “band wagoners” who want to play alongside winning servers isn’t viable IMO for any serious WVW player. I never had a problem with Anet locking high tier servers that got really full compared to others, but now you’ve gone and locked out transfers to literally every real WVW server.

WVW is the reason I stick with GW2, the reason I spend gems on bank space/bags/ crafting. But I’m not going to stay with a game mode where my options are limited to a) organized servers that are going to die a slow death from lack of new players or b) dead low tier servers that you guys are forcing players onto. I’m really disappointed how much you’re disregarding the play experience of serious WVW players who want to play with a strong guild vs other strong guilds.

Please reconsider locking the real kitten servers that actually earned the rank. Those are the servers that can give a really good WVW experience – and the places where transferring players/guilds is actually viable. It’s the organized servers that make GW2 stick out vs other games, killing off those servers will severely hurt the mode in the long run no matter what other changes/improvements you make. And keep in mind, lot of the serious players are actually in playing the game not spending all their time trying to counter ideas on the forums.

TLDR;

I have no problem with locking individual high population servers. But locking ALL servers above T5 is IMO a serious problem, it’s penalizing servers for doing well at wvw by cutting off their flow of recruits regardless of the situation each individual server is in. Anet is IMO cannibilizing the entire community of healthy wvw servers to feed a bunch of servers that died.

You’re on BG. You should be locked, and should have never been linked in the 1st place. As stated above, all T1 and most of T2 if not all of it should have stayed locked and not linked.

Since you brought up cannibalizing, don’t forget all the scabbing that went on to create this mess in the 1st place, which BG was a large part of.

How did I guess this was about Blackgate xD

I didn’t know I was on a dead server playing the game with a bunch of non-competitive “band wagoners”.

People play WvW for a variety of reasons. I personally like being on a server where I can solo roam, havoc, or join up with a zerg anytime I choose. It’s a place where individual player skill matters. If I had to deal with the population levels on Blackgate I probably wouldn’t enjoy playing WvW.

I’m not sure what the best long term solution is for population balance. Server stacking is a problem and we also don’t want to have empty servers. I’m glad that ArenaNet is trying to address these issues. I feel like its too early to start complaining about server locking. The lock isn’t permanent and can be changed.

Dagger.2035:

I didn’t know I was on a dead server playing the game with a bunch of non-competitive “band wagoners”.

People play WvW for a variety of reasons. I personally like being on a server where I can solo roam, havoc, or join up with a zerg anytime I choose. It’s a place where individual player skill matters. If I had to deal with the population levels on Blackgate I probably wouldn’t enjoy playing WvW.

I’m not sure what the best long term solution is for population balance. Server stacking is a problem and we also don’t want to have empty servers. I’m glad that ArenaNet is trying to address these issues. I feel like its too early to start complaining about server locking. The lock isn’t permanent and can be changed.

The problem is that pairing (and the likelihood of pairing rotations) has changed the “vibe” in some of the servers that are now on “full” status.

All I know is that upper tier solos and small havoc guilds have pretty much been screwed over as far as moving into other upper tier servers.

I don’t understand why people keep saying they can’t roam in T1. I’ve been doing it for well over 2 years.

Dagger.2035:

I didn’t know I was on a dead server playing the game with a bunch of non-competitive “band wagoners”.

People play WvW for a variety of reasons. I personally like being on a server where I can solo roam, havoc, or join up with a zerg anytime I choose. It’s a place where individual player skill matters. If I had to deal with the population levels on Blackgate I probably wouldn’t enjoy playing WvW.

I’m not sure what the best long term solution is for population balance. Server stacking is a problem and we also don’t want to have empty servers. I’m glad that ArenaNet is trying to address these issues. I feel like its too early to start complaining about server locking. The lock isn’t permanent and can be changed.

This isn’t about “blackgate”…..if I was serious about roaming, I would definitely transfer to a tier 3 or 4 server. But I want an actual, established server in those tiers, not some “guest” server with fewer guilds, less organization and fewer commanders that could just as easily be linked with a T1 server next quarter. What I’m strongly against is the idea of ALL tier 1-4 servers/“host servers” being set to “full”, not the locking of individual servers.

That’s the thing with the current situation, it’s not really good on either side. Host servers get their recruit stream cut off, which has really bad negative effects over time I already mentioned. Guest servers have no real stability whatsoever thanks to link changes, and players who transfer in/join a guest server as thier only option are denied the organization/coverage/general guild variety benefits that players on the host servers have.

There’s no incentive for players to improve the organization/community on guest servers – they aren’t gaining rank through their own actions, and their tier can change arbitrarily based on “balancing needs”. Empty servers are a bad thing….but the solution is using linking to test potential merges then making them permanent. Not cutting off the player supply to half the servers and putting the other half into a constantly unstable limbo state.

Serith.3712:

Dagger.2035:

I didn’t know I was on a dead server playing the game with a bunch of non-competitive “band wagoners”.

People play WvW for a variety of reasons. I personally like being on a server where I can solo roam, havoc, or join up with a zerg anytime I choose. It’s a place where individual player skill matters. If I had to deal with the population levels on Blackgate I probably wouldn’t enjoy playing WvW.

I’m not sure what the best long term solution is for population balance. Server stacking is a problem and we also don’t want to have empty servers. I’m glad that ArenaNet is trying to address these issues. I feel like its too early to start complaining about server locking. The lock isn’t permanent and can be changed.

This isn’t about “blackgate”…..if I was serious about roaming, I would definitely transfer to a tier 3 or 4 server. But I want an actual, established server in those tiers, not some “guest” server with fewer guilds, less organization and fewer commanders that could just as easily be linked with a T1 server next quarter. What I’m strongly against is the idea of ALL tier 1-4 servers/“host servers” being set to “full”, not the locking of individual servers.

That’s the thing with the current situation, it’s not really good on either side. Host servers get their recruit stream cut off, which has really bad negative effects over time I already mentioned. Guest servers have no real stability whatsoever thanks to link changes, and players who transfer in/join a guest server as thier only option are denied the organization/coverage/general guild variety benefits that players on the host servers have.

There’s no incentive for players to improve the organization/community on guest servers – they aren’t gaining rank through their own actions, and their tier can change arbitrarily based on “balancing needs”. Empty servers are a bad thing….but the solution is using linking to test potential merges then making them permanent. Not cutting off the player supply to half the servers and putting the other half into a constantly unstable limbo state.

That is again an issue with BG. In our link, our linked server is great, hats off to them. I don’t have any particular issues playing with them either, join a squad, ask which TS, hop on and have fun.

And they do contribute, a lot. I could see how in your eyes the contribution from ET would seem miniscule in light of all the hibernating BG players returning to WVW, and it is, because ET ranks amongst the smallest in population and their entire WVW is equivalent to one of your midsize guilds, on top of that, there are no systems in place to retain server identity, for example: “so-and-so objective has been captured by Eredon Terrace”, or Eredon Terrace Invader tags, etc.

But when they get paired with a server below T2, it becomes vastly different. Different atmosphere, different percentage of contribution, etc. You will still have qued EBG and often other maps with or without a server link.

As a NSP’er i have to say the same hats off to he SF players :|, when the re links(IF) happens all gona be missed.

Serith.3712:

I have no problem with locking individual high population servers. But locking ALL servers above T5 is IMO a serious problem, it’s penalizing servers for doing well at wvw by cutting off their flow of recruits regardless of the situation each individual server is in. Anet is IMO cannibilizing the entire community of healthy wvw servers to feed a bunch of servers that died.

Eh that’s your perspective and thats fine. What I can see right now is anet trying to split up the population without having to forcibly scramble the entire community. Doing so would probably be suicide because it would destroy all the communities.

If you want to join into tier 1-4 currently you have to join one of the guest servers, and over time this will split the populations up eventually making the same stacking issue we had before, but in turn when we swap them around in the future it should balance the servers out each quarter. It’s a good idea. I do agree with on the lack of identity gives little incentive to improve. Naturally though those servers should improve by playing with better players and will increase do to people moving to them to play their desired tier.

Now as for the whole “my tier 1 server is dying we have no new recruits” tidbit I am fine with this for three reasons.

1. Most of the tier 1-2 servers are overpopulated. Some of the higher servers are literally obese with players and needs to go on a diet. Not for the sake of them losing, but for the sake of interesting match ups in the future. Locking out forces the servers into a diet and yes they will shed players.
2. The locketout also prevents guilds that are well rooted into a server from being bought out/jumping ship. When a well established guild up’s and moves, the community that’s left behind is always the one the suffer. Sometimes things like this destroy a server, or stack another server.
3. Lastly the whole server stack non sense is prevented. Severs do not have to worry about a group leaving and then following geyser of players leaving as well, or vice versa, you get a guild or two and then suddenly prime time is unplayable because of endless flow of new unwelcome guests.

These three things are some of the root causes of causing people to leave for good. I do not know of a single person that has quit because they couldn’t directly transfer to tier 1-4. In contrast I know many people that have solely because others have.

I was going to recruit my guild from another game to our server to play WvW, but not point in getting them to get HoT if linking can/will change. I would be fine with having them join the lower pop server linked, but if it’s a temporary thing, then there really is no point in them wasting their money.

I’m on t1 server, and tbh …. WvW has been hit or miss lately. Some days, it’s very active and lots of communication, other days its like you walked into an episode of walking dead.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We are looking at ways to improve transfer experience. It’s a complicated problem.

Our current preferred solution, which we’ll likely poll players on, is as follows:

• If you think of the periods between world links being changed as seasons, then we’d lock all transfers for the first half of the season, and allow normal transferring in the second half.
• So assuming we continue to update world links once every 3 months, the first 6 weeks would be locked for all worlds and the second set of 6 weeks would allow normal transfering (costs scaling based on population size.) Then we’d relink worlds and lock transfers for another 6 weeks.

That honestly sounds horrible.
For starters when you throw servers together for 3 months (and remove the lower tiers identities) you end up with guilds recruiting from both servers. If you move these players away from their new friends and then lock transfers so they have no way of rejoining them, players will get frustrated and stop playing.

I was hoping the server links were your way of encouraging players to move to the lower tiers to help balance out the populations. That way you might even be able to open up an additional tier and we could get some more variety.

You need to stop using the smaller servers as fillers. Give them back their server names, use these links the right way.

I hope during the transfer period suggested, stacked servers will still be listed as full.

The proposed solution harbors too many risks. You will not prevent stacking on monster servers. A lair linking will probably become even more difficult. A system should encourage the other way around. In the worst case you create highly imbalanced matches for six weeks.

Uncontrolled server transfers will cause high damage with a high probability. I my eyes quotas and other restrictions are highly needed.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We are looking at ways to improve transfer experience. It’s a complicated problem.

Our current preferred solution, which we’ll likely poll players on, is as follows:

• If you think of the periods between world links being changed as seasons, then we’d lock all transfers for the first half of the season, and allow normal transferring in the second half.
• So assuming we continue to update world links once every 3 months, the first 6 weeks would be locked for all worlds and the second set of 6 weeks would allow normal transfering (costs scaling based on population size.) Then we’d relink worlds and lock transfers for another 6 weeks.

I don’t like that kind of proposal. This proposal is targeting only the existing players looking to transfer. How about the new players? Given that there will be servers opened throughout the seasons while specific servers will be closed during a certain period. New players will flow to those opened servers, even when they have a specific guild they want to join but happen to be in the full server, so they end up having to pay additional money to get themselves transferred in during that “open” period, sucks to be the new players, sucks for the guilds that able to get people to play the game.

No server should be set to full unless it has queues on all 4 maps during primetime

The current system is…. okay…. but it needs work.

First thing’s first. Let’s get one thing clear. No one is transferring to guest servers to transfer to guest servers. Everybody that is transferring to Vabbi is doing so to transfer to Desolation. Everybody transferring to Underworld is doing so to transfer to Far Shiverpeaks. When servers get re-linked, these people are just going to transfer to whatever other guest server is paired with Deso/FSP. So why is it so cheap to transfer to guest servers? It’s encouraging bandwagonning and that’s exactly what happened in Deso.

Second, why is it cheaper to transfer to Deso (via Vabbi) than it is to transfer to Drakkar Lake (via Miller’s Sound) even though Miller’s Sound is in T5 and Vabbi is in T1? Doesn’t make sense.

Next, there’s no reason to lock servers that aren’t linked. I’m talking about Baruch Bay, Jade Sea, Riverside etc. Intentionally handicapping these servers while it’s possible to transfer to servers with higher population like Deso, Piken or Gandara is silly.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We are looking at ways to improve transfer experience. It’s a complicated problem.

Our current preferred solution, which we’ll likely poll players on, is as follows:

• If you think of the periods between world links being changed as seasons, then we’d lock all transfers for the first half of the season, and allow normal transferring in the second half.
• So assuming we continue to update world links once every 3 months, the first 6 weeks would be locked for all worlds and the second set of 6 weeks would allow normal transfering (costs scaling based on population size.) Then we’d relink worlds and lock transfers for another 6 weeks.

My SoS guild died 3 weeks ago, so I moved my main account to EU and my EU alt account to GoM because GoM is linked with SoS and SoS is closed. GoM is great server, but I been for 2+ years playing in SoS with my NA account and when you change the linked servers I want to be able to transfer to the server linked with SoS.

Also, SoS full/closed or GoM marked as Very high is nonsense, we have like no ques, only EBG gets qued on reset day… Hell not even OCX is playing in SoS anymore, most of them are on Dragonwagon…

Edit: If you want to close servers, close the ones linked to T1/T2 and leave the rest in peace.

Freedom to all T3/T4 servers \o/

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We are looking at ways to improve transfer experience. It’s a complicated problem.

Our current preferred solution, which we’ll likely poll players on, is as follows:

• If you think of the periods between world links being changed as seasons, then we’d lock all transfers for the first half of the season, and allow normal transferring in the second half.
• So assuming we continue to update world links once every 3 months, the first 6 weeks would be locked for all worlds and the second set of 6 weeks would allow normal transfering (costs scaling based on population size.) Then we’d relink worlds and lock transfers for another 6 weeks.

I have to agree with Puck here, This is a very terrible very bad plan. Players need to be able to play the game with friends and family. It is MORE important to players to play the game with people they enjoy rather than play a specific game. If they cannot play your game with their friends and family they will play someone else’s game that allows them to.

Every time you unmerge worlds, you will be splitting guilds, friends and family, locking them where they are at only ensures they no longer play your game at all and move to a game that will allow them to play together. Playing with those you enjoy playing with> what game that is.

It should never be taken for granted that players do not have to play your game, you are supposed to make them WANT to play your game. You do not do that by trying to prevent them from playing the game with those they enjoy playing it with.

Locking people where they are not happy only ensures they leave the game unhappy.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We are looking at ways to improve transfer experience. It’s a complicated problem.

Our current preferred solution, which we’ll likely poll players on, is as follows:

• If you think of the periods between world links being changed as seasons, then we’d lock all transfers for the first half of the season, and allow normal transferring in the second half.
• So assuming we continue to update world links once every 3 months, the first 6 weeks would be locked for all worlds and the second set of 6 weeks would allow normal transfering (costs scaling based on population size.) Then we’d relink worlds and lock transfers for another 6 weeks.

I like this idea. Please do this idea.

lil devils x.6071:

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We are looking at ways to improve transfer experience. It’s a complicated problem.

Our current preferred solution, which we’ll likely poll players on, is as follows:

• If you think of the periods between world links being changed as seasons, then we’d lock all transfers for the first half of the season, and allow normal transferring in the second half.
• So assuming we continue to update world links once every 3 months, the first 6 weeks would be locked for all worlds and the second set of 6 weeks would allow normal transfering (costs scaling based on population size.) Then we’d relink worlds and lock transfers for another 6 weeks.

I have to agree with Puck here, This is a very terrible very bad plan. Players need to be able to play the game with friends and family. It is MORE important to players to play the game with people they enjoy rather than play a specific game. If they cannot play your game with their friends and family they will play someone else’s game that allows them to.

Every time you unmerge worlds, you will be splitting guilds, friends and family, locking them where they are at only ensures they no longer play your game at all and move to a game that will allow them to play together. Playing with those you enjoy playing with> what game that is.

It should never be taken for granted that players do not have to play your game, you are supposed to make them WANT to play your game. You do not do that by trying to prevent them from playing the game with those they enjoy playing it with.

Or.. You could all collectively move to an open server en masse and continue to play with the people you value most.

It doesn’t seem right to transfer to a guest server if you don’t actually want to play for that server…

Jayne.9251:

lil devils x.6071:

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We are looking at ways to improve transfer experience. It’s a complicated problem.

Our current preferred solution, which we’ll likely poll players on, is as follows:

• If you think of the periods between world links being changed as seasons, then we’d lock all transfers for the first half of the season, and allow normal transferring in the second half.
• So assuming we continue to update world links once every 3 months, the first 6 weeks would be locked for all worlds and the second set of 6 weeks would allow normal transfering (costs scaling based on population size.) Then we’d relink worlds and lock transfers for another 6 weeks.

I have to agree with Puck here, This is a very terrible very bad plan. Players need to be able to play the game with friends and family. It is MORE important to players to play the game with people they enjoy rather than play a specific game. If they cannot play your game with their friends and family they will play someone else’s game that allows them to.

Every time you unmerge worlds, you will be splitting guilds, friends and family, locking them where they are at only ensures they no longer play your game at all and move to a game that will allow them to play together. Playing with those you enjoy playing with> what game that is.

It should never be taken for granted that players do not have to play your game, you are supposed to make them WANT to play your game. You do not do that by trying to prevent them from playing the game with those they enjoy playing it with.

Or.. You could all collectively move to an open server en masse and continue to play with the people you value most.

Did you read what he said? LOCK ALL TRANSFERS= go play another game until you can transfer.
It just means players will leave the game instead of play a game where they are unhappy.

Dagger.2035:

It doesn’t seem right to transfer to a guest server if you don’t actually want to play for that server…

I really still think it would be better to just keep all current worlds as PvE servers and then create WvW servers that players choose to go to every 3 months or so. Create only enough servers that they have population for. If the game reduces population create less WvW servers, if the game grows, create more.

This way each server community stays in tact and can agree to all go to whatever wvw server as a community. The matchups change every 3 months so they will not be stale, and there will always only be enough servers open that the game has population for.

Win situation all the way around. Give1 free wvw server tansfer per 3 months just in cased they get somewhere that isn’t working for them. All PvE server transfers would be free Win for everyone except Anet would lose money for transfers since you really would not need them as much, but hopefully would gain money from gem store purchases from the players retained by keeping WvW fresh.

The current merger system, the servers have no say over their destiny and they lose their identity to the larger server they are merged with. At least this way they could choose to stay together or part ways and choose what team they play for, not have that dictated to them.

Malediktus.9250:

No server should be set to full unless it has queues on all 4 maps during primetime

This. Population status needs to be reworked more than anything. Why have 4 maps if only 1 or 2 get queued? Maybe they could base population based on how many times a server can queue maps. Anyways, server linking either needs to not exist or they need to make the servers that are linked together be permanent.

Locking all transfers will be a problem. For example: A variable amount of players from server A doesn’t like playing with server B (insert reason). Players from server A is stuck for 3 months. Server A players become very unhappy, or vice versa with server B. You would be better off keeping transfers open and let whichever players want to stack go ahead and stack and deal with the queue or if players want less queue or population they can go where they want as well. Best case scenario players balance the servers themselves, worst case players go play where they want. Drop the gem costs for a while, make it reasonable to transfer and eventually people will settle in the type of server they want. You can still make money off transfers , it’ll just be the fast nickel versus the slow dime theory, plus more of a choice/happy players.

If the servers were locked for 3 to 6 weeks, my guild would just stop playing. If there’s no way to ensure that we’re all together (currently we’re split between 2 servers), we would simply move to a different game and have less fun.

BG should be split into 3 servers and made into its own tier. return servers to the original population caps. let glicko work it out.

meh @ server locked! Prison like 3 hots and a cot! Will never see your friends again!

Take TC, BG and YB fro example. All 3 servers are full and locked, yet you see the numbers and see the coverage… this lockdown doesn’t even things… at ALL.

BG is the #1 “bandwagon” server, but it’s not their fault; it’s the kind of wvw game ANet encourages with their design decisions, latter of which was to reduce the efectiveness of Hardened Gates, making pvd still a reasonable choice when defense is too thick.

Locking down a server does not make things even or even more enjoyable for players. They need to rework and rethink the way they measure server population, and more important, the way server population and coverage affects gameplay in general.

Also, design decisions impact different tiers in a different way. If you make towers easier to defend, the lower tiers will suffer (i’ve read people asking to nerf ACs… really…), but you’ll make nightcapping less of a thing, and i think that’s more important.

I started playing wvw because of the strategic component. Over the years, this has fallen from finding optimal tactics into mindless blobbing and exploiting poorly designed terrain features (catas on weird places, i’m looking at you). I don’t like blobbing, and don’t like being blobbed at.

And i certainly don’t like a game mode where the server with more population wins, no matter what you do.

worst part about that plan, is that full includes dead accounts that don’t log on anymore. I use to love playing mmorpgs.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We are looking at ways to improve transfer experience. It’s a complicated problem.

Our current preferred solution, which we’ll likely poll players on, is as follows:

• If you think of the periods between world links being changed as seasons, then we’d lock all transfers for the first half of the season, and allow normal transferring in the second half.
• So assuming we continue to update world links once every 3 months, the first 6 weeks would be locked for all worlds and the second set of 6 weeks would allow normal transfering (costs scaling based on population size.) Then we’d relink worlds and lock transfers for another 6 weeks.

Future doesn’t look so bright Tyler… I don’t see how any of these efforts will be sustainable for the long run or less of a headache to everyone.

Unless y’all convince MO to make a full fledged 3 realm experience, with enough maps to support it, I’d suggest just going the EotM style WvW route and have timed matches… Pool players from 3 super sides, add up all scores, award winners something extra at the end of each match. Relink servers as necessary to balance. This route will have less collateral damage over time and stronger communities will form over this 3 sided model.

There are obviously almost zero complaints about populations and scoring in EotM, so we have to stop pandering to the individual servers. It’s not good for the overall health of WvW.

I’ll be honest, though, I much prefer pvp related stuff over PvE stuff, but here I spend very little time in wvw and almost no time in spvp for reasons. For a pvp minded player like myself, I have almost 1000 wvw ranks and like 300 spvp matches over the course of going on 4 years. The profession choices are limited, there are virtually no decent roles to play, overall rewards are not good, wvw is always unbalanced, there is nothing inspiring to fight for… The best words I can use to describe how I feel overall are… It seems wvw and spvp were afterthoughts, so players like myself treat it as an afterthought. Players like myself will take it seriously when y’all take it seriously.

I sort of understand the OPs opinion in that we need to congregate all the OCX population to the top 2 tiers (I only say ocx as that is where I play, though most people are probably there already). Just not enough people to spread out any further and even 2 tiers is pushing it.

How would unlocking all linked servers (the lesser population server) with a lower transfer cost (even free) but not specify which server they will be linked to go? (and then lock them once they’ve switched)

Also, aside from forced relocation or complete breakdown and restructure of wvw servers, you won’t get population balance.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We are looking at ways to improve transfer experience. It’s a complicated problem.

Our current preferred solution, which we’ll likely poll players on, is as follows:

• If you think of the periods between world links being changed as seasons, then we’d lock all transfers for the first half of the season, and allow normal transferring in the second half.
• So assuming we continue to update world links once every 3 months, the first 6 weeks would be locked for all worlds and the second set of 6 weeks would allow normal transfering (costs scaling based on population size.) Then we’d relink worlds and lock transfers for another 6 weeks.

Thanks for the response, this seems like a reasonable compromise solution for a complicated problem. As for the problem of newbies not being able to create on the server they want and paying to transfer later….I’ve had a couple of friends end up in this situation, they ended up transferring when the server unlocked. I don’t think this problem is unique to the proposed system though, newbies being unable to join friends in WVW due to population locks has always being around. Think this solution is way better then players having no idea when a server might be open again, and I doubt the majority of newbies have specific wvw server preferences.

IMO a good deal of the server stacking issue is related to scoring problems and “night capping” – upcoming improvements here should significantly reduce the need to stack EU/OCX timezones as well as the impact from doing so.

Anet should do server merges instead of server linkings. Get rid of all bronze league servers by merging them with silver league.
It often feels like Anet and me play two different games, because a lot of their ideas end up in a predictable disaster.

Malediktus.9250:

Anet should do server merges instead of server linkings. Get rid of all bronze league servers by merging them with silver league.

I agree.

Voluntary player movements are not going to create player count balance.

Players are not going to volunteer to leave winning servers and join losing servers.

Players locked into losing servers will just play a different game (or if they have multiple accounts, play one on a server that’s enjoyable).

Players are not going to volunteer to leave winning servers and join losing servers.

Locking transfers is not going to change human behavior, people prefer winning to losing.

Players are not going to volunteer to leave winning servers and join losing servers.

That is not true. During season, some lower servers were once stacked during free transfer. This says that “free” itself is a very powerful incentive to move people.

SkyShroud.2865:

That is not true. During season, some lower servers were once stacked during free transfer. This says that “free” itself is a very powerful incentive to move people.

I don’t think they moved, en masse, off of the server that was otherwise likely to win to one that was likely to lose.

Players will move in order to win. Which is what happened during seasons. A few servers became free to transfer to, so players moved in order to stack for an easy win. And in notable examples, they did win. HoD won the second WvW tournament handily and took the largest prizes.

People who stacked for that win got the most Mistforged Hero weapon skins.

Does ANet plan to distribute Triumphant Hero armor in the same way? If so, it would be sensible to make a prediction for which server will get the most overstacked pairing and transfer now. Since there are only two current Medium population worlds for NA, those are the cheapest options and best guess to get an easy ride for insta-win next quarter.

Heimlich.3065:

Does ANet plan to distribute Triumphant Hero armor in the same way? If so, it would be sensible to make a prediction for which server will get the most overstacked pairing and transfer now. Since there are only two current Medium population worlds for NA, those are the cheapest options and best guess to get an easy ride for insta-win next quarter.

One of the devs, I think Tyler, said that they have no plans to run future tournaments because of this overstacking problem.

Heroes’ weapons are becoming a reward track. Mistforged Weapons and Triumphant Hero are up in the air.