Guild Wars 2

Linking has failed.

Many servers that are linked ride a wave of ‘winning’ only to fall hard once the link is changed or removed.

On top of that mess, the queues since adding “Legendary Armor” has pushed Prime Time queues to all time highs – at least since the last official tournaments.

Please, give us back our servers and watch as the populations and the queues even out and get better.

Give us our servers back – we didn’t sign up to be linked as an add on to a host server.

It’s good that it’s that way, though. Excluding BG, everyone wins some and everyone loses some. You can’t expect to always be at the top unless you’re always manipulating the system.

I can understand when people get upset over losing objectives or having unfavorable match ups but the obsession with always being #1 is something I can’t understand. Sometimes being on the losing team can be fun, you get challenging fights and you don’t have to go far to find action because it’s always at your door step.

Start looking on the bright side.

I can’t say I’d be against unlinking servers but I just want to remind anyone who reads this to relax and to remember that score and rewards aren’t everything. Being passionate and competitive is one thing, but when it gets in the way of your enjoyment, you might need to remind yourself that there’s always next week.

Don’t get me wrong I would love to have Whiteside Ridge back as a proud bronze server again but prime time queues in T1 EU for Piken/WSR barely make double figures.

Maybe it’s different on other servers but except when the pips were added I haven’t seen major queues outside the reset bulge and even that isn’t silly anymore with 2 borderlands having no queue all evening.

Linking has failed.

Would be better for all if servers were completely remade with play style, pop balance and coverage in mind. But the reality is that people would bandwagon and upset balance.

+1
i miss the old server so much, i miss server pride and i miss “Underworlds Garrison” and not the least, no ques!

I would love to have some of the older servers but server link was done because of the low wvw population some of the server. A-net put incentive for wvwers not to bandwagon. Still A-net need to find a way to make wvwer want to spread out to balance all servers. Coverage issues will always exist I do not see how A-net can fix that issue which has plagued wvw since the beginning.

There is no point giving me back my server now, linking killed it, everyone left to other servers. I just hope they blow up all the servers and start again with 12 new ones.

Ulion.5476:

I would love to have some of the older servers but server link was done because of the low wvw population some of the server. A-net put incentive for wvwers not to bandwagon. Still A-net need to find a way to make wvwer want to spread out to balance all servers. Coverage issues will always exist I do not see how A-net can fix that issue which has plagued wvw since the beginning.

You need to take a stand.

Anet won’t care unless all of us do as well.

The linking has made WvW during Prime Time in NA impossible for those who have families and jobs and can’t play any other time.

It’s also destructive to players who are on linked servers, we’re treated like crap.

And don’t get me started on the real life mercenaries being paid to come into WvW, destroying whenever they decide to move.

Vavume.8065:

There is no point giving me back my server now, linking killed it, everyone left to other servers. I just hope they blow up all the servers and start again with 12 new ones.

If the links are unmade, the servers will shake out. I know it’s true because I went to a ‘smaller server’ even though it is a link for others. What makes it different is that I know people on it and I trust them, not the server itself. You will find friends, and that’s where you will be HAPPY to play no matter what.

I found out after 3.5 years of my heart and soul on one server, made gold galore, my reward tracks flew by but it wasn’t fun and it wasn’t friendly.

I found friendly people – and that’s what everyone in this game wants… a community spirit and a loyalty to friends as well as our servers when we get them back, we will rebuild them.

Those who desire a smaller server, will go to smaller servers.

Those who want BG will have to wait like everyone else who has had to wait to get into it over the last five years.

atheria.2837:

Give us our servers back – we didn’t sign up to be linked as an add on to a host server.

No, I moved to Kaineng specifically because it was a link server.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

It’s good that it’s that way, though. Excluding BG, everyone wins some and everyone loses some. You can’t expect to always be at the top unless you’re always manipulating the system.

I can understand when people get upset over losing objectives or having unfavorable match ups but the obsession with always being #1 is something I can’t understand. Sometimes being on the losing team can be fun, you get challenging fights and you don’t have to go far to find action because it’s always at your door step.

Start looking on the bright side.

I can’t say I’d be against unlinking servers but I just want to remind anyone who reads this to relax and to remember that score and rewards aren’t everything. Being passionate and competitive is one thing, but when it gets in the way of your enjoyment, you might need to remind yourself that there’s always next week.

Mag doesn’t have a dog in this fight.

If you have an alt, and many do, (I do not) you’d see what I am told over and over and over.

They go back to the ‘biggest’ server becuase the smaller ones are linked in incomprehensible numbers against tiers above them.

That’s not fair nor equitible in anyone’s book.

I’ve played against almost ever server since 8 months after GW2 was released ( I was a late starter, I didn’t know WvW existed…), when you are outnumbered you may get rewards but you also get people not wanting to come in when 5-1 or queued for 20-50+ minutes. It’s demoralizing. It’s not fun and that’s why commanders are screaming for big fights on most servers, they can’t find numbers unless its a blob they have no hope against.

There are many different elements to the linking, but one thing it has done is taken away the ‘down times’ that are necessary for any server to be able to make gains when everyone else is asleep – except with linking the strongest servers are hiring mercs, and their populations are 24/7 with a link no matter whom they are against.

atheria.2837:

The linking has made WvW during Prime Time in NA impossible for those who have families and jobs and can’t play any other time.

It’s also destructive to players who are on linked servers, we’re treated like crap.

And don’t get me started on the real life mercenaries being paid to come into WvW, destroying whenever they decide to move.

Hum I have never had an issue logging on whenever I wanted to. That is an issue with whatever server/guilds you are linked with. That why you should consider moving to a different server or just waiting out this match-up. I know you love that server but if you can not play on that server within your limited play schedule, you should look at your options.

Server linking isn’t meet the problem that “full” server bull kitten meet had even if the server is always outmanned

Linking has fail. Blow up the servers. Fresh start, new journey.

SkyShroud.2865:

Linking has fail. Blow up the servers. Fresh start, new journey.

This could actually solve a ton of problems but would also create chaos in communities

Blow up, link, whatever you’d please — only do it in NA. The whole new system was implemented because players refused to spread out in NA, and it completely borked EU which was fine prior.

Do all the new shinies for NA. They want it.

The last relink was a huge mistake made by Anet. At least in EU. It screwed up complete servers again. But they keep hiding behind, obviously, meaningless statistics.
Merge 3 High Populated Servers while other “full” servers are just getting outnumbered, btw “full” – what a joke.
Is this the best Anet can make out of WvW? Is this what Anet understands about balancing and fun for their customers?
WvW need balancing all over the table – even when the table is big. :P

So, my last hope is that Anet will make the big thing and finally merge some server permanent- asap, atleast relink again.

Sry, for my bad english.

Jayne.9251:

Blow up, link, whatever you’d please — only do it in NA. The whole new system was implemented because players refused to spread out in NA, and it completely borked EU which was fine prior.

Do all the new shinies for NA. They want it.

Interesting… Well, perhaps sorting out all NA players by their native tongue and race will help us be more organized like EU servers… Maybe we could have the devs force players into regional and county servers? Like Northern Canadian, Southern Canadian, West Coast US, Central US, East Coast USA, Australian…

…Seriously, though, do you have a developer quote stating that the EU was fine prior to linking?

Also, how does one force players to spread out evenly? I’m sure we’d all like to hear a rational and possible way to achieve this…

NA had the issue with server stacking; prior to linking, EU did not have the issue — or at least not to the extreme that was seen in NA.

The linking has brought the NA bandwagon movement to EU. We really hadn’t seen it in EU prior to linking; again not to the extreme that was happening in NA. SFR was the only server, allegedly, that actively paid for guilds to transfer to its server. It’s why it remained dominant for a long time.

EU players: solo, roamers, guilded, but particularly guilded had discussions amongst each other to ensure that three max big guilds were on each server to ensure a good ratio of fights. These guilds self-organized and helped balance out the rest of the pug masses. And I’m pretty sure none of these guilds cared whether they were in 1st, 2nd or 10th spot: they just wanted to make sure they had the bodies to fight to challenge them and their friends during their leisure time.

What did motivate them were queue times: If they got too long on any given server, they’d move down in tiers.

It wound up creating a pleasant playing field where pugs could improve skillset by tagging along with high level guilds — and pugs would leave the guilds alone if they were working on group raids/compositions etc… Scouts could call out blob reports and the guilds would actually (good naturedly) fight with each other in map chat over who got to take on the blob first. I even witnessed one guild wait at the side to let another guild have the first shot.

EU servers period would complain about what is common in NA — zerging. And accuse other guilds of hand holding if they didn’t wait turns.

It’s just a completely different mentality. In EU it’s about the gameplay, in NA it was about the reward/first place, etc… Weekends on most EU servers were empty because folks were out doing things with family and friends. Weekdays became the game days.

EU did not need linking to balance out the population. The majority played during prime and there were small groups of devoted “daytime/nighttime” regulars.

The server balance issues were NA only. Linking was created for NA.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Your blanket statements aren’t a far cry from racism in terms of ignorance. But then I guess I should expect that from an EU player. See how unfair that is?

I think you mean bigotry.

I’m not that either.

Jayne.9251:

You both are a bit defensive.

NA had the issue with server stacking; prior to linking, EU did not have the issue — or at least not to the extreme that was seen in NA.

The linking has brought the NA bandwagon movement to EU. We really hadn’t seen it in EU prior to linking; again not to the extreme that was happening in NA. SFR was the only server, allegedly, that actively paid for guilds to transfer to its server. It’s why it remained dominant for a long time.

EU players: solo, roamers, guilded, but particularly guilded had discussions amongst each other to ensure that three max big guilds were on each server to ensure a good ratio of fights. These guilds self-organized and helped balance out the rest of the pug masses. And I’m pretty sure none of these guilds cared whether they were in 1st, 2nd or 10th spot: they just wanted to make sure they had the bodies to fight to challenge them and their friends during their leisure time.

What did motivate them were queue times: If they got too long on any given server, they’d move down in tiers.

It wound up creating a pleasant playing field where pugs could improve skillset by tagging along with high level guilds — and pugs would leave the guilds alone if they were working on group raids/compositions etc… Scouts could call out blob reports and the guilds would actually (good naturedly) fight with each other in map chat over who got to take on the blob first. I even witnessed one guild wait at the side to let another guild have the first shot.

EU servers period would complain about what is common in NA — zerging. And accuse other guilds of hand holding if they didn’t wait turns.

EU did not need linking to balance out the population. The majority played during prime and there were small groups of devoted “daytime/nighttime” regulars.

The server balance issues were NA only. Linking was created for NA.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Your blanket statements aren’t a far cry from racism in terms of ignorance. But then I guess I should expect that from an EU player. See how unfair that is?

I think you mean bigotry.

I’m not that either.

Nah…

I’ll ask again since you are deflecting…

Do you have any dev statements to back up your claims about EU?

You have any ideas on how to force players to spread out in equal numbers on every server?

Swagger.1459:

Nah…

I’ll ask again since you are deflecting…

Do you have any dev statements to back up your claims about EU?

You have any ideas how to force players to equal numbers out on every server?

Why do I need a dev statement to back up what I witnessed first-hand? (I played both NA and EU).

I went back and edited my content to elaborate on some thoughts, perhaps there’s an answer in there to your second question.

The world linking system is garbage and should be abandoned, but I doubt that will happen. ANet is making too much money off of people bandwagoning to linked servers, so they have no interest in unlinking servers.

Valik Shin.9027:

SkyShroud.2865:

Linking has fail. Blow up the servers. Fresh start, new journey.

This could actually solve a ton of problems but would also create chaos in communities

If communities are as united and organised as they claim to be, there will be little to no chaos. The only chaos comes from the casuals that think that they are part of the communities but never try to be connected with the communities.

Jayne.9251:

The linking has brought the NA bandwagon movement to EU. We really hadn’t seen it in EU prior to linking; again not to the extreme that was happening in NA. SFR was the only server, allegedly, that actively paid for guilds to transfer to its server. It’s why it remained dominant for a long time.

EU players: solo, roamers, guilded, but particularly guilded had discussions amongst each other to ensure that three max big guilds were on each server to ensure a good ratio of fights. These guilds self-organized and helped balance out the rest of the pug masses. And I’m pretty sure none of these guilds cared whether they were in 1st, 2nd or 10th spot: they just wanted to make sure they had the bodies to fight to challenge them and their friends during their leisure time.

As did NA guilds
The buying (and imbalance) was motivated by something much less prevalent in EU, players on the other side of the world. There just simply aren’t enough eastern hemisphere players to go around, and scarcity creates demand. But it’s nice to put oneself on the back occasionally, so have at,

LetoII.3782:

Jayne.9251:

The linking has brought the NA bandwagon movement to EU. We really hadn’t seen it in EU prior to linking; again not to the extreme that was happening in NA. SFR was the only server, allegedly, that actively paid for guilds to transfer to its server. It’s why it remained dominant for a long time.

EU players: solo, roamers, guilded, but particularly guilded had discussions amongst each other to ensure that three max big guilds were on each server to ensure a good ratio of fights. These guilds self-organized and helped balance out the rest of the pug masses. And I’m pretty sure none of these guilds cared whether they were in 1st, 2nd or 10th spot: they just wanted to make sure they had the bodies to fight to challenge them and their friends during their leisure time.

As did NA guilds
The buying (and imbalance) was motivated by something much less prevalent in EU, players on the other side of the world. There just simply aren’t enough eastern hemisphere players to go around, and scarcity creates demand. But it’s nice to put oneself on the back occasionally, so have at,

Yes but the mass buying of guilds was a predominantly NA phenomenon; which contributed to the new Cold War era in WvW.

We weren’t seeing it in EU.

And a good chunk of those “purchased” guilds were NA timeslot; even if it did start with other hemispheres.

At that point the servers in NA were so stacked not even Imodium could have helped. And there was thread after thread about pop imbalance —- where that wasn’t happening in EU.

So they introduced linking. And it had negative impact on what had been a reasonably robust WvW scene in EU.

I was quite excited to see the guild T3/T4 jump in NA, was sad to see it not stick as folks had that tunnel vision “I must be number one” thing happen.

And I had zero to do with the guild coordination: it was just something I noticed and was impressed by with EU players. They talked to each other and made a deal for the health of their gameplay; which had a trickle down effect for everyone else, myself included.

I agree. Linking isn’t doing the servers any good.

Im mind blown how my server, literally last place in T4, is still “full” ? how can we EVER compete like this ????

+1 for servers unlink. If Anet wants to balance servers wvw population, then, it must create an intelligent server transfer, like the amount of gems needed for transfer. If a server gets low on wvw players, then it must be cheaper or free to transfer into, the opposite is for high. This will be great news for WvW guilds that needs to move between servers, to match on guild adversary. Let’s create “a room” for WvW guilds to move around on low tier servers, to be very cheap for transfers. I barely see any GvG in Obsidian Sanctum arena or Guild Hall arena, they need to be “alive” and expose to the public, not isolated on some sort of arenas, because is still a part of World versus World!

atheria.2837:

Linking has failed.

Many servers that are linked ride a wave of ‘winning’ only to fall hard once the link is changed or removed.

On top of that mess, the queues since adding “Legendary Armor” has pushed Prime Time queues to all time highs – at least since the last official tournaments.

Please, give us back our servers and watch as the populations and the queues even out and get better.

Give us our servers back – we didn’t sign up to be linked as an add on to a host server.

+1 on this.

On Sea of Sorrows, Devona’s Rest didn’t really bring much to the table. And now we’re stuck with Borlis Pass again.

I mean no offense to either server, but their plan to cap all the host servers as full and force people to transfer to the smaller ones isn’t really working out in the lower tiers.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Excluding BG, everyone wins some and everyone loses some.

A lot of the lower tier server groups have been consistently losing (and in complete blowouts) for months due to absurd matchmaking (e.g. this week’s CD vs FA and Mag), and are losing a lot of players because of it. People can only get blobbed over just so many times before they realize they could actually be having fun in a different game.

Unlinked servers were a disaster of their own with bottom tiers nearly void of players during huge swaths of a day. Linking is the lessor of the two evils.

Linking has failed. Give us guest servers our homes back. Linking was a money saving strategy sold to the community as a glorified “update”. And the majority of you bought it….so i honestly don’t know what most of you are complaining about, ur here cause u brought us here.

Might as well dub the wvsw beta: WvsW: THE ENHANCED EDITION; its not different than any hd remaster out there where they ship a buggy product with less features than the original.

Linking was the only solution the players would accept. Blowing the whole thing up and starting over (with strict limits on transfers to prevent people from stacking servers again) or going megaserver would work better, but the foolish “server pride” of people like the OP won’t let that happen.

no dude. grow a memory. most servers were ghost towns pre links. I’m tired of ppl complaining and not using their brain to remember how bad it was.

Stand The Wall.6987:

no dude. grow a memory. most servers were ghost towns pre links. I’m tired of ppl complaining and not using their brain to remember how bad it was.

Indeed. My guild did transfer out prior the linking because the battlefields (EU last tier) were too empty. The linking allowed the last tier servers enjoy active WvW again. Great.

Unfortunately the linking, like megaservers would, removed all the competition from WvW. No matter how well you play, the matchup has already been decided by ANet links.

The servers are still not equally populated. You cannot match up the first and the last tier servers even with multiple links. There goes the matchup variety. You will face the same servers again and again week in week out.

ANet even had to resort to manually adjusting Glicko ratings to get the matchups they wanted out of the system.

I would not complain at all if stacked servers were blown up, linking ended, migration policy introduced, and guilds were let to resettle the servers evenly. A fresh start.

Straegen.2938:

Unlinked servers were a disaster of their own with bottom tiers nearly void of players during huge swaths of a day. Linking is the lessor of the two evils.

Wait are you describing T1? Because that also describe single server T1 to a tee. Since FSP got unlinked, we can still be outmanned in primetime and only populate one border.

Anyway, I still dont like links either because they make Anet balance WvW like a lava lamp. Oh so you dropped to T2, we cant have that! Here have a link and be able to beat all other servers. Oh your T1 now? Nonono that wont do, you are too strong so lets remove the link.

And round and round we go.

This isnt healthy.

Korgov.7645:

I would not complain at all if stacked servers were blown up, linking ended, migration policy introduced, and guilds were let to resettle the servers evenly. A fresh start.

^

Phineas Poe.3018:

atheria.2837:

Linking has failed.

Many servers that are linked ride a wave of ‘winning’ only to fall hard once the link is changed or removed.

On top of that mess, the queues since adding “Legendary Armor” has pushed Prime Time queues to all time highs – at least since the last official tournaments.

Please, give us back our servers and watch as the populations and the queues even out and get better.

Give us our servers back – we didn’t sign up to be linked as an add on to a host server.

+1 on this.

On Sea of Sorrows, Devona’s Rest didn’t really bring much to the table. And now we’re stuck with Borlis Pass again.

I mean no offense to either server, but their plan to cap all the host servers as full and force people to transfer to the smaller ones isn’t really working out in the lower tiers.

Not sure how being “stuck with Borlis Pass” can be a bad thing. BP has a good bunch of WvW dedicated people that actually PLAY the game, not just for the PIPS etc. Sadly I’ve seen so many host servers blame their linked servers for their issues and it always makes me shake my head.

We’re all in this together, and BP (and the other hosted servers) aren’t happy either. But taking shots at each other as if one caused the other to have a “bad day” just doesn’t make sense to me.. just sayin.

We too hold out the hope that one day we can become our own server again. In the meantime let’s go kick some butt!

- Guild leader of Howl (mostly a one man show but expert roamer/havoc) – BP

Straegen.2938:

Unlinked servers were a disaster of their own with bottom tiers nearly void of players during huge swaths of a day. Linking is the lessor of the two evils.

I think that these issues will probably pretty much resolve themselves. As anyone might have noticed there are queues a lot of the time more than ever now that this PIP system has come into play. Many people just give up and “don’t play tonight” because of the queues.

If they unlinked the servers then people would be able to split out, and join in, and it’s likely that a lot more people would do that now that we have this PIP farming going on.

Yes a lot more PvE folks in here now… and it’s a good opportunity to turn lots of them into good WvW players if we can. Right now with all this queuing during primetime it just turns people away.

Been saying this for ages, server merges just made for a laggy clusterkitten in WvW and make absolutely no sense in terms of the linking systems. some of us want to WvW with friends Anet but your kittening systems are making it impossible to get on the same server at times due to a good chunk of them being entirely full. forcing us to xfer every 3 months or just grin and bear it, CHANGE IT. No one likes it and NCsoft forced you to consolidate.

The server being full has nothing to do with linking, though I’m sure you know that (like everyone who wants to “play with their friends” on a full server).

Also the playerbase has proven, time and again, that they will not balance their own population (and will do everything in their power to _un_balance it).

If they break links, are people going to come back in here to complain about how about their low server populations and how links destroyed their servers?, even though they were well on that way at the time of links. Because if they break links not one person should come in here to complain about populations again.

If they unlink servers it wont be a problem now like it was before, currently lower tier servers are far more populated than ever and gw2’s population has increased massively, only like 2 servers on the NA side have a medium population. everything else is high, very high, or full now.

Dawdler.8521:

Straegen.2938:

Unlinked servers were a disaster of their own with bottom tiers nearly void of players during huge swaths of a day. Linking is the lessor of the two evils.

Wait are you describing T1? Because that also describe single server T1 to a tee. Since FSP got unlinked, we can still be outmanned in primetime and only populate one border.

Anyway, I still dont like links either because they make Anet balance WvW like a lava lamp. Oh so you dropped to T2, we cant have that! Here have a link and be able to beat all other servers. Oh your T1 now? Nonono that wont do, you are too strong so lets remove the link.

And round and round we go.

This isnt healthy.

He’s also really only describing NA.

I wish Anet would give us a poll on this, and let the majority decide.

And separate it by EU and NA player.

The two are completely different beasts.

And that has the possibility of pleasing the greater number of players, instead of a blanket change for everyone.

XenesisII.1540:

If they break links, are people going to come back in here to complain about how about their low server populations and how links destroyed their servers?, even though they were well on that way at the time of links. Because if they break links not one person should come in here to complain about populations again.

Sadly there will always be people that complain about anything that’s done. Many of the posters I see in these forums are prolific complainers and I’ve even seen some complain one way, then back the other way when things are changed. As I like to say, it is what it is… and people will do what they do. After all is said and done though, I really do believe it’s time to give the servers back their identities and let things roll out however they do. Complaints won’t get better or worse… they will just continue but I believe that more people will actually be pleased… and those ones you won’t hear from anyway.

Fridgemomo.3750:

I wish Anet would give us a poll on this, and let the majority decide.

We already had a poll… and linking is now a permanent feature because it was voted in by the majority.

Also, a dev clearly stated that populations have increased since linking was implemented…

Good luck with your efforts to put us back in the same problematic state wvw was before!

I mean if you want most of WvW to return to a ghost town for the sake of server pride, then have at it.

Truly you guys should read the posts here.. at least a couple of them. Since this new PIP system the populations have exploded. Queues are not uncommon and frankly splitting it all back up again would open the door to more of these people that want to come in but decide not to a lot of prime time because of the queues.

It’s NOT like it was before the linking.

Lahmia.2193:

I mean if you want most of WvW to return to a ghost town for the sake of server pride, then have at it.

Not like that.

Undoing the world linking would mean either merging servers, or forced migrations to rebalance populations across all servers.

If the number of tiers is increased, it would be wise to decrease playable area. For example closing some maps at off peak hours, or having only 2 borderland maps per matchup. Yeah, yeah, the north position in BL maps needs a nerf first.

In any case a migration policy is needed to prevent server stacking. In fact we needed it since day 1.