Guild Wars 2

Hi,

First off, I’m really happy to see some update on WvW and yesterday clearly showed just how alive the game mode could still be, if only given some small attention.

It’s nice to see new and returning players playing the game again and up until that point your plan to bring players back into WvW has worked well. However, you have failed to prepare the grounds for the influx of players. Yesterday on EU FSP server the queues were hitting up to 100 people in average on all WvW maps. So my confusion here and what seems to be a conflict of interests on your part is that you’re trying to bring players back into WvW and yet on the other hand, more than half of players that want to play are stuck in queues. That leads to a fast drop of interest in the game mode among both new and old players of WvW.

Some people might think to transfer to a less populated server(link) in this case, but your reward policy at this point basically pigeonholed them into staying on current server, if they want to get the new rewards. I cannot even imagine how guilds will be raiding, if the current situation persists. There’s simply no way to get 15-20 people into one map unless everyone starts queuing 2-3 hours beforehand.

Please consider making an emergency server re-link come friday 9.6., if we want this situation remotely under control.

Best regards

they can unlink servers, probably now, the servers populations inst more a issue. eacg serve by itself.

Or create an item called “Badge of PvP junkies” at gem store, allowing instant access to the borderland.

Uhmm transfering to a low tier server doesn’t help at all. We are also full house. All borders were+30 and EBG +50 yesterday. I’m pretty sure the next prime times will be the same. I mean, even now we have queue, when it’s usually just 10 players during this time before the patch.

The wait time is only 20 to 30 minutes with a 50+ Q, just run a farm route while you wait.

WereDragon.6083:

The wait time is only 20 to 30 minutes with a 50+ Q, just run a farm route while you wait.

There are way too many factors that determine the speed of queue to just generalize how long a 50 man queue takes.

I agree with you Samo,
Took yesterday a screenshot about the ques at FSP at 21:00 Dutch time.

Endishel.1726:

I agree with you Samo,
Took yesterday a screenshot about the ques at FSP at 21:00 Dutch time.

That’s a photo not print screen.

It took me 2 hours to get through the 33 queue line….

HOD has no queues now, is sad, we need queues.

ArenaNet, can you make a better solution than just “wait until people
have quit”? How about trying to keep renewed player interest and growing the mode instead of just having it unable to meet the demand? And yes I know there are probably lower or no queues in off-hours, but people should be able to play with their friends and their guilds when they want to, not need to sneak in queue one by one. It is bad design.

Some ideas to encourage the kind of transfer movement that is needed:

1. Remove the 3 week time gate for earning pips for those players that move DOWN tiers.

2. Retroactively reward those players that have already moved down, say in the last 3 months. Give them 1 week’s worth of tickets for proactively participating in the balancing that WvW needs. This way, players will move off bloated servers, relieving the problems with queues to the benefit of the heavily populated server, and improving the situation for the less populated, lower tiered servers.

3. Reward guilds/players that move DOWN tiers AND fill in needed timezones – to reward thinking about timezone balancing. If a particular timezone is lacking players on that server, and a guild group or player moves there, give them some tickets for doing what is needed to create a better balanced server overall. If movements were based on which timezones were the most needy, that would create an inherent reward for balancing out each server. Relinking messes this all up every 2 months. So… end the relinking… (which is another topic altogether).

4. Increase the pips earned when players are in SMALLER sized squads, say 20-25. The 50+ map blob zerg is killing the play in WvW. Nothing can face a 50+ squad running together other than another 50+ squad and/or a ton of siege. Encourage more reasonably-sized squads where fights can take place. This will encourage more tags to exist and less mindless blobbing. New players can receive more attention in smaller squads. Please……

5. Give the outnumbered increased pip reward to those groups who are taking on outnumbered fights. If the 50-man map blob is pip-training your stuff, and your 20-man tries to take them on, then they earn the out-numbered buff rewards. This is regardless of whether your MAP is outnumbered. This is about breaking the blobs down into reasonable sized squads for MORE fights and less pip-training.

If the blob runs down a 10-man havoc, no points for PPK, and the 10-man group gets rewarded during that tick.

We need to get some balance into the competition, instead of encouraging a constant stacking of unchallenged timezones and blobby pip-trains (sorry for that). They aren’t that much fun to lead and they aren’t that much fun to be in. Encourage more teams to form up on a map. But to do that, we need a solution for the sense that the best format is a map blob that runs down and runs over everything except for a counter-map blob.

Do NOT increase the map populations or overall server populations. This will only encourage more UPWARD bandwagoning.

The queues that the higher tier servers, those with the excess populations, are currently facing are deserved and a logical consequence of the bandwagon effect. Implement rewards for destacking those servers and tiers and encourage movement onto servers where they can actually hope to get their entire guild team into WvW. Encourage them to move into timezones where there will be other players playing at the same time.

Just ignore the whining and complaining about those long queues, and give out a few carrots to encourage moving out and off of those bloated servers.

Locking down pip earning for 3 weeks discourages BOTH movement up AND movement down tiers. It would be more beneficial to reward a movement to fill in less populated host servers, than to discourage the participation of those newly interested players who are creating the queues and who we want to participate and experience World v World with us.

Dunno about that 50man problem. We were able to get 6 guardians on map and 20in squad. with staff 1 and autorun through zergs. game is just as easy at it was in 2013! well done anet!

People,people, people. This was the norm in the first year or two of the game. So first off relax. The ques will be gone in like a week or two. All the “new” people will most likely leave after they realize that it will be very difficult fro them to get the rewards they want. Until then que up and enjoy the free bags these “new” people are providing.

@Pensadora:

Most of the stuff I agree with except for the 3 week thing and rewarding any players that have “moved down”. People switching servers to lower servers do it to bandwagon for less gems. They aren’t doing anything that resembles “the good of WvW balancing”. They are either moving to hang out with friends.. or switching to “the better server linking” of the day. Except on possibly extremely rare occasions, people are “bandwagoning”… not being helpful.

With all due respect I totally agree with turning off rewards for bandwagoners.

When linking happened there were queues for a few matches before it all settled down.

Next month you’ll probably see people complain about how few players there are in the map.

Meh, take a week, chill from WvW and see how it is. Do world exploration, do guild missions, brush up on those jump puzzle skillz and hunt achievements maybe?

We’re still looking at effectivly the reverse scenario of a living story release (ie when WvW turn into a desolate wasteland for about a week).

If queues remain this high after that… well then I might become grumpy as well.

Balthazzarr.1349:

@Pensadora:

People switching servers to lower servers do it to bandwagon for less gems. They aren’t doing anything that resembles “the good of WvW balancing”. They are either moving to hang out with friends.. or switching to “the better server linking” of the day. Except on possibly extremely rare occasions, people are “bandwagoning”… not being helpful.

With all due respect I totally agree with turning off rewards for bandwagoners.

Was not encouraging movement to linked servers for less gems, so I agree with you there.

Guess my guild is the ‘rare exception’, as we moved down looking for less blobby, more reasonable fights and the challenge of NOT being on the #1 server in T1. New patch does mix things up a bit, but NOW, when interest is highest, is when to start encouraging newly entering players & guilds to move around to balance out time zones and fill out servers with needed coverage.

Yep, it’s probably unusual to think we could all try to think more about the BIG picture, so count me the optimist.

the queues just prove how neglected WvW has been. now every map on my server has a 40+ man queue, before you could not even fill one map in prime time.

Pensadora.9478:

Balthazzarr.1349:

@Pensadora:

People switching servers to lower servers do it to bandwagon for less gems. They aren’t doing anything that resembles “the good of WvW balancing”. They are either moving to hang out with friends.. or switching to “the better server linking” of the day. Except on possibly extremely rare occasions, people are “bandwagoning”… not being helpful.

With all due respect I totally agree with turning off rewards for bandwagoners.

Was not encouraging movement to linked servers for less gems, so I agree with you there.

Guess my guild is the ‘rare exception’, as we moved down looking for less blobby, more reasonable fights and the challenge of NOT being on the #1 server in T1. New patch does mix things up a bit, but NOW, when interest is highest, is when to start encouraging newly entering players & guilds to move around to balance out time zones and fill out servers with needed coverage.

Yep, it’s probably unusual to think we could all try to think more about the BIG picture, so count me the optimist.

You are definitely ‘the optimist’.. and that is definitely a good thing

Well said. I work in the UK so the change now prevents me from playing the game as queues on wvw have gone from none on 1-3 severs to 60-150 on all. Game over as can’t get in to play. I suppose I am pleased that so many people are getting to try wvw though unfortunately I have effectively been kicked out of the game as a result.