Guild Wars 2

Hey all, now that the initial shock is starting to wear off, cooler heads can start to prevail and we can engage in a more civil dialogue about this recent change to WvW by listing what we see as good and/or bad about server linking, and add our suggestions, solutions and other ideas, because after all it is in beta testing and pointing out issues is what we should be doing.

Now I know many of us, myself included as evident by the beginning of my other post, were very frustrated because after all this is a very big change. I take blame for that post taking on a negative tone, and devolving into a back and forth, leaving little room for any constructive purpose.

While we may sometimes have a different approach we do all share the same desire of course, to get people interested in wvw, and to keep people playing wvw. And to help anet make wvw a better gamemode for all of us. So lets please keep this constructive. Please refrain from personal attacks, and please avoid endless back and forths.

Now after reading many posts regarding this issue both pro and con. I feel that this can be a good system, but it definitely needs tweaking, but thats ok, this is why it is in testing. So lets go over some of the Pro’s and Con’s. And please list your’s, any concerns, suggestions, solutions, and ideas you have.

-More activity on maps, always good. However also makes it harder for smaller groups to operate.

-Combining the population of two worlds onto a set amount of maps without a way of expanding the map population cap (because of technical reasons) can create more queues as a result. The amount of queues can vary of course, but the chance to hit a queue is greatly increased.

-Increased difficulty for guilds to coordinate and float to other maps if needed because there is a greater chance of hitting a queue.

-Some people from lower tiers do not like being forced into being absorbed by higher tiers. This has led to a loss of server community, server pride, and loss of a particular style of game play and having to accept something they are not interested in.
In the past, players had a choice of where to move, because each server and tier had a more distinct style of game play. Higher tiers were seen as more blobby, lower tiers were seen as more focused on small groups, and middle tiers were seen as a mix of the two.

Pros:
-WvW is alive
-Tiers are dead
-Roamers in the brink of extinction

Cons:
-Tier fanboys rant
-Queue haters rant

Verdict:
coordination is hard at first but you may share your preferred voip to your linked server, invite them to TS3 for coordination as you did before on your own server
put a tag to them like linked/paired/merged on your ts so you know they are allied servers or use the good old map/team chat

be friendly to your linked server so that 3 month of side by side fights can be fun
remember they are your allies not enemies on the match up

there will be trolls/spies who will destroy your temporary/permanent ally in order to take advantage of it, this is war “divide and conquer” as they say

last note: GLHF

These are my current observations:

Caveat:
* Reset 22-04-2016 was a Statistic Anomaly, not viable as Metric.
* Anet/players need more time to observe and experience changes.

Pro:
* People to play with
* Meeting new communities/opponents
* Larger match-up variation
* Semi-Dynamic (not static Link)

Con:
* Removes low/medium population playstyle
* Removes smaller servers community/identity
* Potentially larger queue’s
* Problems for users with weak hardware or poor ISP
* Server-Link communication/coordination (TS/Forum etc)

Things I’m thinking about but can’t decide on yet:

Once we see how the population of the current links works over 2 or more weeks, there could be a discussion about linking other worlds. For example NA not linking the top 6 server for example, and how the remaining servers should be linked. But it is way too early to consider this yet.

The bottleneck to population of *4* static maps, and what implications it would have to population if it was removed. This could potentially allow for servers to stack much larger than is currently possible, and the server "full" is game-able. Have some ideas for this, but doesn’t belong here.

I see the erasure of server/community identity as the most severe of these, but don’t have any good ideas.

Will likely come with more ideas, or change existing thoughts as we see more of the beta.

Joneirikb, I would like to hear about that idea. What if they reduced the map population slightly per map and introduced another map perhaps with a different theme.

I am getting slightly annoyed about all the people whining about queues. You do not HAVE to go EB every time, for god’s sake learn to play on BL maps too. And secondly, many servers still have lower population, transfer into these and make matches more balanced.

The large queue is created by players all gathering up into few top servers. It is not Anet fault and is not telling anything about world linking. If you, as a player, choose to go into most populated server, you have picked to play with queue. Accept it or pick smaller server.

FogLeg.9354:

I am getting slightly annoyed about all the people whining about queues. You do not HAVE to go EB every time, for god’s sake learn to play on BL maps too. And secondly, many servers still have lower population, transfer into these and make matches more balanced.

The large queue is created by players all gathering up into few top servers. It is not Anet fault and is not telling anything about world linking. If you, as a player, choose to go into most populated server, you have picked to play with queue. Accept it or pick smaller server.

People should be able to play on whatever map they choose. My guild raids pretty much exclusively on borderlands, because we cannot fit our group in EB during our active raid time, even before this feature was introduced. People go to higher tiers because they want a more active population, just like they would have went to lower tiers because they wanted less blobbing and more small group play.

There is a set amount of playable maps, and a set population cap per map, per server, therefore the more people you try to combine on each side, the greater chance there will be for queues. Queues do have an effect on player behavior, this cannot be ignored.

All the cons we are talking about were normal at the first WvW season or has everyone forgotten that. That’s why EotM was brought out, so people could play sort of WvW while waiting in Q to real WvW.
Border spreadsheets anyone? That was normal too. Guilds telling where theyll run for their raid day.
Yea no, I don’t see issues with this. Only issue would be if anet changes the pairings weekly. Then it would become almost impossible to co-ordinate properly

Weli.4568:

All the cons we are talking about were normal at the first WvW season or has everyone forgotten that. That’s why EotM was brought out, so people could play sort of WvW while waiting in Q to real WvW.
Border spreadsheets anyone? That was normal too. Guilds telling where theyll run for their raid day.
Yea no, I don’t see issues with this. Only issue would be if anet changes the pairings weekly. Then it would become almost impossible to co-ordinate properly

Keep in mind seasons were a temporary event. Server linking is to be a permanent feature with periodic server rotations.

Here are some theoretical points:
pros:
-meeting new people
-more people on each map
-wvw is getting more interesting on the borders due to the fact that you are more likely to meet enemies

cons:
- small servers are being inoffically closed
- roaming gets way more difficult due to the fact that you are more likely to meet a zerg
- the linking system worked in many cases, exept of some matchups, espacially the abaddon matchup

About the aba matchup:
We are already used to play against worlds having a much higher ranks than us, e.g. playing vs Seafarer’s Rest and Gandara in week 5 or in the next week against Jade Sea and Piken Square. If we are playing vs an equal tier server, it’s often Dzagonur, where many of our guilds were going in the past six months, causing us to have some guilds on our homelands that are thinking that it’s their border. But whatever until this matchup we just thought, yes we are a bit unlucky if it comes to the matchups, but honestly it’s a bit very awkward what happened on this reset: Our ranks 15 server (unlinked) is playing vs Augury Rock rank 10 (linked with Fort Ranik) and Aurora Glade rank 11 (linked with Blacktide). even before those worlds were linked, both of them had much more players than we had. Furthermore i have no idea, which population values ArenaNet took, but those data seem to be a bit older, according to the fact that we just lost about 300 to 400 wvw players by guilds, transfering to other servers such as Elona or Dzagonur or Gandarra, causing us to have about 100-120 active wvw players left. Mentioning the additional fact that our server was never really strong in the prime time, we managed to get !1! queue, which size was 3 on one border. The EB commander switched over to the homelands after being overrunned by 80 man blobs while he himself has (for our server a big group) 40 people. The same took place on our homelands, causing many players, who just came in the wvw being curious about the beta and the changes that come with it, to quit out of wvw. Even some of the 100 players, being the hard core of Abaddon, quit with the words “see you in 3 months”. Others, who didn’t quit are just saying that they won’t play this for tzhe next 3 months.
Leading to my last statement: Why the heck seems ArenaNet to hate us, giving the server the last push over the edge by performing so bad in the linking of worlds, preventing us from getting out of our spawns at some time. Did they just use the current rating? The only reason why Aba hasn’t heavily dropped is that we are a nightcapping server, getting the point out of it. But to be honest there is no chance of this to get changed in the next months, if nothing changes, because the people, who are playing on prime time are getting stomped by groups, often at least twice the size of ours. In the german forum there was even a thread, considering some links between the worlds that would have fit (link: https://forum-de.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Server-Paarungen-in-der-EU-Paarungs-Tipps/first#post495399).
Honestly ArenaNet, i hope there will be some changes coming up very very soon, or otherwise, you can at least see yourself as the ones, who had success in killing wvw on Abaddon’s Mouth -.-

Sorry to hear about whats going on in your server, I am also curious about what data they used to matchup servers.

Has anyone tried guild missions yet? From what I saw yesterday, they would be near impossible now in wvw

Colarov.9068:

Has anyone tried guild missions yet? From what I saw yesterday, they would be near impossible now in wvw

It might be a little difficult during a busy timezone, to just hop into a map like before to do a mission. It would probably be a better idea to pop missions off during a normal guild raid.

everything is fine except the insane lag when fighting or not. Mainly in WvW. Please fix!

FogLeg.9354:

I am getting slightly annoyed about all the people whining about queues. You do not HAVE to go EB every time, for god’s sake learn to play on BL maps too. And secondly, many servers still have lower population, transfer into these and make matches more balanced.

The large queue is created by players all gathering up into few top servers. It is not Anet fault and is not telling anything about world linking. If you, as a player, choose to go into most populated server, you have picked to play with queue. Accept it or pick smaller server.

Yeah that argument doesn’t really work in this situation. Most players had already moved to a server that fit their play style. After moving around to a bunch of tiers I settled in T3 because I could find decent roaming all hours of the day. the merges pretty much killed that. If I did decide to move my account again, at my own expense, what’s to say they won’t link different worlds in a couple weeks and throw me back into a blobfest kitten show?

Pro’s
WvW has a lot more activity all hours of the day
Could potentially lead to more variety in match ups since the population difference won’t be as drastic

Con’s
They destroy’d low tier server identities
Very little variety between the tiers (small scale is harder to find)
Server side lag is back in a big way, hard crashes are more common
Still haven’t returned the Alpine leading to much larger EBG queues
Server organization problems due to temporary merges ( hesitant to give TS permissions or guild invites to players that may be your enemy in a couple weeks)

Possible fixes
Open 1 more tier (top populations didn’t need a merge)
Return Alpine (much better for small scale)
Character names are changed to color, rank, server initials , guild tag. An example would be Green Gold Soldier GoM TM (Create an option to see friendly tags that include rank and server). Capture message would be "Green team has captured… Everything else would be Ebay/HoD.

Anet is getting rid of small group concept on purpose. First they made it so smaller numbers couldn’t win against larger numbers (assuming at equal skill level) now they are making it so everyone has to blob up to win.

As long as guilds try to game the system and stack servers there will be problems in WvW.

Well, another discussion seems to be descending into name-calling and arguments. For my part the cons are:

Loss of Server Identity (Important to some, not to all)
Harder to Roam/Small Scale fights
Sameyness of Play on Higher Rank Servers

Pros:

Got nothing, sorry. Oh yes I do…people to fight. Yeh, forgot about that

Rather have seen the bottom 6 servers pair up than this. Vabbi was nice because it was different. That’s why I went there in the first place. Got blobs again now, and I don’t like em.

Pro: lots of fun and people to play with if you were paired
Con: if you are fighting as a solo server you are kinda out of luck

If you stack a server you are going to have a queue. Basic MMO’s 101.

Pro: If you stack a server and have a queue, you get what you deserve.

Con: For those of you from lower tiers who now have a queue because you were paired with a stacked server, you have a legitimate complaint.

Mid tier (Ex T4 servers) does not have queue the next day. Even if there is queue, is only a very small queue. Overall the wvw is much more alive than before.

Personally, I don’t really care about so-called server community, I opt for the greater good and will vote for complete dissolve of servers and redistribution of population via selection of new servers.

Spare a thought for poor old Baruch. They’ll never get a date.

Pros:
More players playing WvW

Cons:
Glicko hell still exists in NA.
Which will lead to NA T1 recruiting lower tier guilds after T1 queues disappear.
Which will lead to fewer players on lower tiers which will slowly kill NA WvW

Norbe.7630:

Pros:

-Roamers in the brink of extinction

Why so much hate? We are not all worthless trolls you know.

Pros:

Cons:
From small player base to too many players
Too many blobs
Small scale fights nonexistent/hard to find
Roaming almost dead
11111111 game play prevails
Map queues
Server identity lost
Player identity diminished
Uneven fights

WvW is alive..
Pro:
Finally normal fights, that means 50vs50 ,not 50 vs 25
Finally there are people in not just at nights
Alpine will come back, Halleluia, so that means the queue time will be better, because we can go on 4 map we like, not on 1.

Cons: Massive lag, especially skill lag, if Anet wants zerg fights, 150 people, then please fix that (note that I even lowered my graphics, and I have very good computer, and still, sometimes massive lags, or disconnection).

Kudos to anet for trying something fresh, with good potential.

Some feedback for the common “cons”:

-Queue hell… If EB is packed then queue a BL and roam on EotM.
-Blob hell… Learn to avoid blobs. If you like roaming then choose a BL or EotM.
-Lag hell… When the lag hits too hard simply relocate. Always turn down settings.
-Small server death… You should already be tight knit: keep ties, seek each other out, coordinate as you have.

Queues : I think this topic deserves consideration outside of the normal pros and cons. A reasonable queue is fine but sitting in 30 – 120 minute queues to get into WvW like happened during the seasons is not sustainable. Especially if it becomes the norm. And no EotM is not a satisfactory answer to the problem. If it counted towards your score or had some measurable impact on it then sure but as it stands it’s about as valuable to WvW scoring as a Silver Waste run.

Pros -

1) Population increase for now. Though when the shininess wears off I have a feeling a lot of the people who came back for wvw will be leaving. Hopefully not but time will tell

2) Less dead time overall. It’s nice to be able to jump in and have things to do (eg find groups to run with and groups to fight)

Cons -

1) Lower tier communities destroyed. To me that’s not an issue but to a lot of people it is. WvW was really the last thing left to hang a server identity on and now it is gone for the guesting servers.

2) Anet poorly prepared servers and didn’t allow time to coordinate. Short term issue but annoying. They could have simply forbidden server transfers and told everyone the matchings ahead of time.

3) Blobs. Finding smaller scale fights (10-15) is going to be more rare. Particularly during prime time.

4) It doesn’t address the actual issues with population on servers and what has caused the slow but steady bleed off of WvW players over the past couple of years. Stagnant matchups, poor rewards (getting better), poor ingame performance (lag, disconnects, etc)

dubstax.9102:

I disagree with 1111 gameplay. I will give comms credit. It’s a lot of coordination needed in order to move zergs around and call out what’s needed when you know you’re going to need it. So I am not nor do I ever belittle those who like big zergs.

However, the problem is that the recent update has now made WvW almost exclusively gigantic zerg vs. gigantic zerg and not everyone is all about zerg fighting just as WvW is not just about fights.

The majority of players just spam 1, thats all I’ve seen over the last few days and that gameplay is not engaging at all.

dubstax.9102:

I can’t see that happening though. There has been a lot of time, money, energy spent into making TS3 server communities, websites, etc. You’ll basically be trashing everyone’s work and telling them they have to start all over again which you may find a lot saying why bother because what if this happens again.

Honestly, I believe this link is just a soft merge for anet to see how the communities respond to it and how active the WvW could be. If consolidating the population is proven to be more popular than server community site and ts3 by the majority, I believe anet will work on their next population balance base on this approval. Afterall, the greater good is the majority. This population balance still have a lot of areas not touched.

I still don’t know why they linked the Top NA servers. At least in EU they left the first 6 alone.

FogLeg.9354:

The large queue is created by players all gathering up into few top servers. It is not Anet fault and is not telling anything about world linking. If you, as a player, choose to go into most populated server, you have picked to play with queue. Accept it or pick smaller server.

wut.

I was on a small server prior to the merge. Now we have queues of 50+ at all hours of the day or night on every map. I suspect in a couple weeks that number will decrease to thirty.

Like I have said before in other threads I see no pros to this. none.

Can the people who like this change explain these things to me. I am genuinely interested in these answers.

Why, if you love big fights, did you not transfer to a server that had these?
they have existed in the higher tiers. and transferring is not actually that expensive at all. You can get enoug gold/gems with a couple of days of silverwaste farming if you are even remotely willing to put a little time into it and not want to spend a couple of bucks.

Why do you like queues?
While I get that they represent a map being full and having a fair fight.
it also represents people not able to play where they want to play(the red number to me is people wanting to go somewhere they are not allowed). First and foremost this is a game people play to have fun in some way. Red numbers to me look like people not having fun, or not having as much fun as they want to.

related to this: Prime time is not there because people only like the big fights. It’s there because that’s when the most people have time to play. If that’s when there are massive queues. That means that prime time players lose a significant chunk of their gaming time waiting to play.

Why is playing in smaller servers not a valid choice?
Many like the more focused smaller fights. Some of us transferred away from the big servers to the smaller ones for their own reasons.

and more practically. It can be a way to avoid problems.
We have lost guild mates to the simple fact that their computers or internet cannot handle the big fights now dominating even the borderlands. And they have computers above the recommended system specifications.

why do you think it’s a good idea to change the server linking every three months?
Communication among team speak and community guilds is already at risk of being spied at. We have people joining guilds and TeamSpeak servers of people we might fight against in a couple of months.
Right now i am in the community guild of another server. If they don’t scrub their guild the next time we’re against them. We can just casually follow their every move.

And the biggest question of all. What it all boils down to for me.

Why do you think it’s a good thing that we lost the ability to chose how we play?

Ranking, skill level, community thrown aside. All feelings of how you want to play thrown away.
How can you call it a good thing, that a way of playing the game, available for years now is shoved aside and removed.

We had the choice how to play. And now we don’t. I can not think of a single reason why this is good. Not as a player, not as a consumer and not for a company.

BlackDiablo.3972:

Like I have said before in other threads I see no pros to this. none.

Can the people who like this change explain these things to me. I am genuinely interested in these answers.

Why, if you love big fights, did you not transfer to a server that had these?
they have existed in the higher tiers. and transferring is not actually that expensive at all. You can get enoug gold/gems with a couple of days of silverwaste farming if you are even remotely willing to put a little time into it and not want to spend a couple of bucks.

It is a matter of solo transfer and a group transfer. Also, you have to factor in the amount of time taken to farm those and the amount of gaming time a players have. Likewise, you also have to factor in financial level of the players in real life. And, you have to factor in the thoughts pattern of the players, thoughts such as but not limited to “why should I pay for something that anet is responsible of fixing”. Finally, you have to account for the super casuals.

BlackDiablo.3972:

Why do you like queues?
While I get that they represent a map being full and having a fair fight.
it also represents people not able to play where they want to play(the red number to me is people wanting to go somewhere they are not allowed). First and foremost this is a game people play to have fun in some way. Red numbers to me look like people not having fun, or not having as much fun as they want to.

related to this: Prime time is not there because people only like the big fights. It’s there because that’s when the most people have time to play. If that’s when there are massive queues. That means that prime time players lose a significant chunk of their gaming time waiting to play.

It is unfortunate for you but not all servers are packed full after the link. TC might be the only server that is packed really full, afterall a number of guilds of decent size decided it is a great idea to transfer there a week before the patch. Ah, BG might be also another server that might be packed full.

BlackDiablo.3972:

Why is playing in smaller servers not a valid choice?
Many like the more focused smaller fights. Some of us transferred away from the big servers to the smaller ones for their own reasons.

and more practically. It can be a way to avoid problems.
We have lost guild mates to the simple fact that their computers or internet cannot handle the big fights now dominating even the borderlands. And they have computers above the recommended system specifications.

Why should the wasteland servers be punished due to declining population? As for your point about computer spec, it doesn’t make sense technically because anet has never release such thing as recommended spec, only minimum spec.

BlackDiablo.3972:

why do you think it’s a good idea to change the server linking every three months?
Communication among team speak and community guilds is already at risk of being spied at. We have people joining guilds and TeamSpeak servers of people we might fight against in a couple of months.
Right now i am in the community guild of another server. If they don’t scrub their guild the next time we’re against them. We can just casually follow their every move.

This concern is raised in another thread, way before the link occur, right after the patch, raised by me in fact.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Concerns-about-World-Linking-Reward-Tracks/first

It really depend on how your ts3 admin manage it. Teamspeak can create multiple different permissions and it is relatively easy to remove the permission altogether.

BlackDiablo.3972:

And the biggest question of all. What it all boils down to for me.

Why do you think it’s a good thing that we lost the ability to choose how we play?

Ranking, skill level, community thrown aside. All feelings of how you want to play thrown away.
How can you call it a good thing, that a way of playing the game, available for years now is shoved aside and removed.

We had the choice how to play. And now we don’t. I can not think of a single reason why this is good. Not as a player, not as a consumer and not for a company.

I don’t get you. The only choice you had was a highly populated server or a low populated server. The only thing that affect you is your playstyle, it doesn’t change your ranking and skill range. Also, when you made transfer from one server community to another server community, did you ever care about the server community you were in? =)

Thanks for the response, it does give a more detailed insight in how it feels for the other servers. And while I stil prefer the rollback I understand why you guys prefer it this way.
For the sake of the argument though, the rest of this comment :P

Why, if you love big fights, did you not transfer to a server that had these?

It is a matter of solo transfer and a group transfer. Also, you have to factor in the amount of time taken to farm those and the amount of gaming time a players have. Likewise, you also have to factor in financial level of the players in real life. And, you have to factor in the thoughts pattern of the players, thoughts such as but not limited to “why should I pay for something that anet is responsible of fixing”. Finally, you have to account for the super casuals.

If you try a bit you can farm about 20gold(counting materials) an hour in silverwastes atm. fractals still earn a nice bit of coin,even wvw and edge of the mists is a half decent way to get some decent gold.
Alone or as a guild transferring is not that expensive or difficult.(we transferred two times before settling in underworld, with “scouts” transferring to over half the servers available)

the “why should I pay for something that anet is responsible of fixing” is a valid response, and in a way I agree. It still baffles me that they didn’t just link the lowest tiers together keeping the bigger ones intact. a retort to this though.

I lost the option to even pay to fix the problem I have now, since there are no low population servers left anymore.

In my eyes a better fix would have been an update to the visitor system where you can’t visit the servers your home world is against right now. but you can enter world versus world. Combined with a “first one’s free” transfer system would allow many players to go to the place they want to be.
Once that is done i’d actually understand if they merged the one or two lowest population servers because of system resources or because those servers are so low in population that they can’t even start a Siegerazer.

Why do you like queues?

It is unfortunate for you but not all servers are packed full after the link. TC might be the only server that is packed really full, afterall a number of guilds of decent size decided it is a great idea to transfer there a week before the patch. Ah, BG might be also another server that might be packed full.

Farshiver peak + Underworld also has a 40+ man EB queue starting at 10am going up to around a hundred or more in prime time.
it might die down a little but for the Underworld people it was rare to see a queue above 5 people.
On reset Underworld had a full squad ready and several roamer groups, while that’s not amazing. We don’t see that as a wasteland.

From what i’ve heard whiteside ridge seems to not have a queue most of the time. but that’s the only one i know of. And i’m going to keep an eye on that.

but ya know "why should I pay for something that anet is responsible of fixing "
(..i’d probably just pay though..)

Why is playing in smaller servers not a valid choice?

Why should the wasteland servers be punished due to declining population? As for your point about computer spec, it doesn’t make sense technically because anet has never release such thing as recommended spec, only minimum spec.

Technical mistake on my part sorry, they have systems exceeding minimum specifications and cannot run it on minimum settings at an even somewhat playable frame rate(in big fights i’d still call 10fps “playable”)
Apart from that the declining server population can be mostly solved by the players. if anet is willing to help and not just smash servers together with no regard for the people in half those servers. It’s not a punishment in my eyes to be in a low population server as long as you can get out if you want to.

why do you think it’s a good idea to change the server linking every three months?

This concern is raised in another thread, way before the link occur, right after the patch, raised by me in fact.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Concerns-about-World-Linking-Reward-Tracks/first

It really depend on how your ts3 admin manage it. Teamspeak can create multiple different permissions and it is relatively easy to remove the permission altogether.

I actually forgot about the permission levels. Stupid of me :P

And the biggest question of all. What it all boils down to for me.

Why do you think it’s a good thing that we lost the ability to choose how we play?

I don’t get you. The only choice you had was a highly populated server or a low populated server. The only thing that affect you is your playstyle, it doesn’t change your ranking and skill range. Also, when you made transfer from one server community to another server community, did you ever care about the server community you were in? =)

The entire problem is that it affects my play style, I chose to transfer to a lower population server because I prefer how the gameplay is there. And i feel that there is a bigger sense of community. it’s hard to explain but in big servers i feel like a spec in the masses, and while i don’t need to feel like a hero of the server. smaller servers give you the feeling that you make more of an impact in the game.
one person messing up in a big wvw server does not lose a match up, but one person in pvp can break it significantly, low population servers to me are the golden middle ground of impact versus responsibility.

And to answer the community question. In my home server(ring of fire) I didn’t care one bit. I only knew guild mates and a couple of random people. But other than that it was just “the masses” to me.
In Underworld it felt more like one big community, and while i definitely didn’t know everyone. There was a higher percentage of people I knew and played with.

Pros:

• More people to fight with and against
• WvW alive nearly all day (the eternal war is back in truth)

Cons:

• Queues: I expect them to diminish a lot
• Lag: no lag for me, but I heard others had it
• Server identity loss: genuine and probably the most important con
• Diversity: I still have a lot of chance to roam/small scale on Desolation, but it doesn’t seem this is the case on every server.

Balance:

• I think the balance is positive: having population currently outweighs any of the other ‘collateral damage’.
• I do think they can keep the world linking system AND reinstate some form of server identity.
• No hotfixes for queues and lag possible, but they are variable, so should not keep anyone out of WvW indefinitely.

Chiming in from Kaineng!

Pros:

- Chance to meet some new friends in T2 we would otherwise never run across.

- Chance to try out other playstyles; it’s always fun to have a change of pace.

- A percentage of our server do enjoy large scale fights/tactics but haven’t transferred up or set up an alt because of attachment to their server/friends. So this is a fun opportunity for those players.

- Population. Non-primetime players are happy to have allies on maps (esp. borderlands) at all times of day.

Cons:

-Increased difficulty for guilds to coordinate and float to other maps if needed because there is a greater chance of hitting a queue.

Yes, this was a problem over the weekend. Hopefully the queues ease up but if weekend borderlands queues are typical in T1-2, it does hurt our inter-server coordination and guild runs in WvW.

X T D.6458:

Some people from lower tiers do not like being forced into being absorbed by higher tiers. This has led to a loss of server community, server pride, and loss of a particular style of game play and having to accept something they are not interested in.

In a nutshell these are the cons for my server. It’s all about playstyle and server identity – we’ve lost both. I’d love to try out linking between lower tiers, and the top two tiers left as is.

And preferably sooner rather than later, as this current structure has a chance to seriously damage the cohesive communities we have built on the low tiers if it goes on for too long. Please do something to bring back server identity at the very least, to help us keep our morale up.

Thanks for this thread!
Nanesh, Owl Legion

Whew is the offcial news about this ???

It sounds as in another Anet change on how to ruin a mmo as usual.

sionnach.5391:

Chiming in from Kaineng!

Pros:

- Chance to meet some new friends in T2 we would otherwise never run across.

- Chance to try out other playstyles; it’s always fun to have a change of pace.

- A percentage of our server do enjoy large scale fights/tactics but haven’t transferred up or set up an alt because of attachment to their server/friends. So this is a fun opportunity for those players.

- Population. Non-primetime players are happy to have allies on maps (esp. borderlands) at all times of day.

Cons:

-Increased difficulty for guilds to coordinate and float to other maps if needed because there is a greater chance of hitting a queue.

Yes, this was a problem over the weekend. Hopefully the queues ease up but if weekend borderlands queues are typical in T1-2, it does hurt our inter-server coordination and guild runs in WvW.

X T D.6458:

Some people from lower tiers do not like being forced into being absorbed by higher tiers. This has led to a loss of server community, server pride, and loss of a particular style of game play and having to accept something they are not interested in.

In a nutshell these are the cons for my server. It’s all about playstyle and server identity – we’ve lost both. I’d love to try out linking between lower tiers, and the top two tiers left as is.

And preferably sooner rather than later, as this current structure has a chance to seriously damage the cohesive communities we have built on the low tiers if it goes on for too long. Please do something to bring back server identity at the very least, to help us keep our morale up.

Thanks for this thread!
Nanesh, Owl Legion

It will be an adjustment no doubt, but hopefully overtime, it will become easier for groups to find it easier to engage in their preferred play style. I have to stay it was nice seeing action everywhere. In terms of server identity, I think it will just have to be a tradeoff, might frustrate some, but it might be good for wvw overall because it means for action and people on maps. So we will see what adjustments and improvements will be made. But there is definitely an excitement in the air, this has really shaken things up, and wvw needed something like this even if it has been/will be a little bumpy at first while we adjust.

Pros:
Much more activity in wvw, again. Great to see!
Activity across all the maps, most of the time.
Interesting to see so many different people and playstyles in wvw, now.
Actual defenses happening a lot. This had been gone for awhile on Kaineng, as there weren’t enough in wvw to mount effective defenses, or you would just sit there forever waiting for someone, anyone, to attack. Or, it would be 5-6 defenders against a zerg of 20-40……that wasn’t any fun, either.

Cons:
Ques. I don’t think these are really that big of a deal for those wvw’ers that have experienced ques before. However, can be a real shock for some lower tiered players who expect to get into wvw whenever they want with no wait. I think these ques will continue to diminish in the coming weeks, and people will get more used to encountering ques on certain nights.

Server identity. I don’t think this is that big of a deal, as the lower tiered servers were already losing their server identities in wvw because most of the main wvw guilds had already moved onto higher tiered servers. Hard to have much of a server identity, when there is not much action in wvw, and most of your server wvw crowd has moved on. (I know this was happening with Kaineng)

Reward tracks need to improve. Right now, they move at a snail’s pace, and that needs to improve. But, it is great to have those reward tracks in wvw, finally. I hated having to pvp for those tracks.

As more people get used to this new form of wvw, I think the communication channels will continue to improve. People not used to it will become more familiar with TS and how it is an extremely effective tool in wvw, when used correctly. Coordination will become better on TS as the higher tiered servers incorporate their new allies/buddies.

And, inevitably, with the larger populations in wvw…..the chance of encountering jerks will get higher. Learn to grow a thicker skin, or ignore, or use the block feature. Most people out there are actually fairly nice most of the time. Don’t let a few idiots here and there ruin it for ya.

I wonder if after a set period of time 2 weeks / 4 weeks / etc the linking was removed. At that point the guests could move for free to their respective host limiting the stacking of any 1 server.
1) It would provide a path for those that do like the zergs to continue with that playstyle.
2) It also provides for the return of small scale that some really prefer.
3) It allows the guest to escape the host where there is culture clash.
4) It restores an identity to the guest server that simply no longer exists.
I admit I don’t know what happens after, but the linking didn’t resolve population balance anyway IMHO.

edit: added 4

X T D.6458:

It will be an adjustment no doubt, but hopefully overtime, it will become easier for groups to find it easier to engage in their preferred play style. I have to stay it was nice seeing action everywhere. In terms of server identity, I think it will just have to be a tradeoff, might frustrate some, but it might be good for wvw overall because it means for action and people on maps. So we will see what adjustments and improvements will be made. But there is definitely an excitement in the air, this has really shaken things up, and wvw needed something like this even if it has been/will be a little bumpy at first while we adjust.

Excellent post. Completely agree.

LordOtto.2650:

WvW is alive..
Pro:
Finally normal fights, that means 50vs50 ,not 50 vs 25
Finally there are people in not just at nights
Alpine will come back, Halleluia, so that means the queue time will be better, because we can go on 4 map we like, not on 1.

Cons: Massive lag, especially skill lag, if Anet wants zerg fights, 150 people, then please fix that (note that I even lowered my graphics, and I have very good computer, and still, sometimes massive lags, or disconnection).

This, the lag needs to be fixed. Both skill lag and Anet REALLY REALLY needs to optimize their game engine as it is universally regarded as a joke in terms of optimization (it’s pretty but WOW is it CPU hungry. Use our GPUs!!!!)

So many OLD games have optmized their engine with new DirectX engines yet Anet seemed to have statically built theirs ONLY with the intention of using DirectX 9. Direct X11 and 12 provide so much more benefit when it comes to massive amounts of draws (DirectX9 is limited to 6K draws, DirectX 12 is something like 600K draws. Assuming each character is drawn roughly 6 times (more like 10 honestly) those 6K draws get used up REALLY quick and we’re just assuming characters, not even taking into the fact of scenary.)

It would be really nice if Anet went more into developing and solving those core issues like graphics and latency lag. You can have someone with the top of the line specs and they would still be bottlenecked because of the unoptimization there is in GW2.

Come on! Even my old 560Ti in my old desktop supports DirectX11.

Liston.9708:

I wonder if after a set period of time 2 weeks / 4 weeks / etc the linking was removed. At that point the guests could move for free to their respective host limiting the stacking of any 1 server.
1) It would provide a path for those that do like the zergs to continue with that playstyle.
2) It also provides for the return of small scale that some really prefer.
3) It allows the guest to escape the host where there is culture clash.
4) It restores an identity to the guest server that simply no longer exists.
I admit I don’t know what happens after, but the linking didn’t resolve population balance anyway IMHO.

edit: added 4

If they were to remove the linking, we would be right back where we were in wvw. Lower tiers with little action, higher tiers action packed, and lower tiered wvw’ers moving again to higher tiers.

I don’t know……am not sure what point you’re trying to make with your post…..I am getting that you want things to return back to the way they were in wvw…..but maybe I am not interpreting your post correctly.

Liston.9708:

I wonder if after a set period of time 2 weeks / 4 weeks / etc the linking was removed. At that point the guests could move for free to their respective host limiting the stacking of any 1 server.
1) It would provide a path for those that do like the zergs to continue with that playstyle.
2) It also provides for the return of small scale that some really prefer.
3) It allows the guest to escape the host where there is culture clash.
4) It restores an identity to the guest server that simply no longer exists.
I admit I don’t know what happens after, but the linking didn’t resolve population balance anyway IMHO.

edit: added 4

Well there is population balance, then there is coverage imbalance. Population balance is easier to work on, basically combine as many people as technically possible on a server, as it the case with server linking, its essentially a soft version of a server merge except with linking it allows servers to remain and be rotated periodically. This was actually a smarter move then simply removing some servers altogether because it leaves them room to use servers should the need arise, if they had removed them, they lose that. Coverage issues would require a little more work, now that each server has more people, what is needed is a rework of the scoring system.

Towelie.9504:

LordOtto.2650:

WvW is alive..
Pro:
Finally normal fights, that means 50vs50 ,not 50 vs 25
Finally there are people in not just at nights
Alpine will come back, Halleluia, so that means the queue time will be better, because we can go on 4 map we like, not on 1.

Cons: Massive lag, especially skill lag, if Anet wants zerg fights, 150 people, then please fix that (note that I even lowered my graphics, and I have very good computer, and still, sometimes massive lags, or disconnection).

This, the lag needs to be fixed. Both skill lag and Anet REALLY REALLY needs to optimize their game engine as it is universally regarded as a joke in terms of optimization (it’s pretty but WOW is it CPU hungry. Use our GPUs!!!!)

I agree with the point that Anet needs to optimize the engine so that it uses our gpus in a more efficient manner, rather than being so cpu intensive.

That being said, I have not experienced any lag in wvw, yet, and I have been in quite a few very large battles. NA here, with a very speedy fiber optic ISP.

Teon.5168:

Liston.9708:

I wonder if after a set period of time 2 weeks / 4 weeks / etc the linking was removed. At that point the guests could move for free to their respective host limiting the stacking of any 1 server.
1) It would provide a path for those that do like the zergs to continue with that playstyle.
2) It also provides for the return of small scale that some really prefer.
3) It allows the guest to escape the host where there is culture clash.
4) It restores an identity to the guest server that simply no longer exists.
I admit I don’t know what happens after, but the linking didn’t resolve population balance anyway IMHO.

edit: added 4

If they were to remove the linking, we would be right back where we were in wvw. Lower tiers with little action, higher tiers action packed, and lower tiered wvw’ers moving again to higher tiers.

I don’t know……am not sure what point you’re trying to make with your post…..I am getting that you want things to return back to the way they were in wvw…..but maybe I am not interpreting your post correctly.

but many of the players on the lower tiered servers WANTED that style – some even paid to move there. If they wanted the bigger pop they have had 3 years to move. Now they have no choice and no identity at all.

BlackDiablo.3972:

Why do you think it’s a good thing that we lost the ability to chose how we play?

Ranking, skill level, community thrown aside. All feelings of how you want to play thrown away.
How can you call it a good thing, that a way of playing the game, available for years now is shoved aside and removed.

We had the choice how to play. And now we don’t. I can not think of a single reason why this is good. Not as a player, not as a consumer and not for a company.

You want to know why it has to happen? because the devs have to focus on something to provide the necessary changes to a dying game mode. The game mode has to be homogenized to a single experience in order to balance it properly when it comes to rewards/skill balance/map design, otherwise its a mess that ends up in a waste of resources.

Im sorry to tell people this but the 4 WvW maps were not designed to be the personal playground of a 40 man group like it was in the lower tiers. The “low tier” playstyle was a result of heavy population imbalance were there were more tiers than realistically the WvW population could use. And while there are quite a few number of people irritated by the change you also have to know you are the vast minority, the game should never be balanced after the minority. Your “choice” on how to play was never supposed to be a choice in the first place.

Let me just make it clear im also sure T1 probably isnt the poster child of how the game mode should be either but im sure its closer to the intended way the game mode is supposed to be used than whatever the lower tier servers had.

Im still curious about some things.

-How will the linked servers be affected in terms of scores, ratings, rewards if there is another season?

-How long will servers stay locked, and are these servers locked for new players as well

-How long does the beta test last

X T D.6458:

Liston.9708:

I wonder if after a set period of time 2 weeks / 4 weeks / etc the linking was removed. At that point the guests could move for free to their respective host limiting the stacking of any 1 server.
1) It would provide a path for those that do like the zergs to continue with that playstyle.
2) It also provides for the return of small scale that some really prefer.
3) It allows the guest to escape the host where there is culture clash.
4) It restores an identity to the guest server that simply no longer exists.
I admit I don’t know what happens after, but the linking didn’t resolve population balance anyway IMHO.

edit: added 4

Well there is population balance, then there is coverage imbalance. Population balance is easier to work on, basically combine as many people as technically possible on a server, as it the case with server linking, its essentially a soft version of a server merge except with linking it allows servers to remain and be rotated periodically. This was actually a smarter move then simply removing some servers altogether because it leaves them room to use servers should the need arise, if they had removed them, they lose that. Coverage issues would require a little more work, now that each server has more people, what is needed is a rework of the scoring system.

No argument here on coverage and scoring. Was the population balance really resolved by the linking or did people come back because of the other patch changes which were pretty darn good? We only got to see 3-4 days without the link, but I know BG, JQ and YB had many more peeps playing tues, wed, thurs after the patch.

Liston.9708:

but many of the players on the lower tiered servers WANTED that style – some even paid to move there. If they wanted the bigger pop they have had 3 years to move. Now they have no choice and no identity at all.

Unfortunately, that is true. I know a few of those sorts of diehards on Kaineng.
I think, with this new wvw server matchup thing that they have implemented, that Anet is responding to the larger crowd that wanted more activity in wvw. And, imo, that is a good thing. One only has to look at the current activity levels in wvw, and that people have obviously returned to wvw.

Whether that lasts for any length of time has yet to be seen.

Sadly, this kind of change leaves those diehards that you speak of out in the cold, as they were, most likely, a minority among wvw players.