Guild Wars 2

The point of server linking was to reduce population imbalance. It does not do that. In the upper tiers, server linking creates a toxic treadmill where the forsaken servers are often hopelessly outnumbered if they are not over-full. Something has to change with this system for WvW to be competitive.

As always, my suggestion is linked in my tag.

I’d argue the opposite. In NA at least, the tiers haven’t been this balanced in a LONG time. Just notice how much servers are rotating and staying somewhat competitive.
Perfect balance will never, ever happen. No matter links, population resets and such. What we have right now, I’d say, it’s pretty good. What hurts is how long it takes to relink. In 2 months, so much can happen.

Got to feel sry for the T1 worlds when they where doing the links.

Jski.6180:

Got to feel sry for the T1 worlds when they where doing the links.

JQ wasn’t even t1, and it got no link.

T1 was JQ, DB and BG at the linkings. TC swapped with JQ briefly.

Cecilia.5179:

Jski.6180:

Got to feel sry for the T1 worlds when they where doing the links.

JQ wasn’t even t1, and it got no link.

Lol so that what happen.

I think it’s working in that population balance between all server groups is closer than it was before. There are still some match-ups that are wonky but not as often or as much as before linking. Thus, while links didn’t solve all the problems, they did make headway on what they wanted to accomplish.

The biggest issue is still how poorly the game handles even a slight imbalance in population, though. If that was in order then server linking wouldn’t have such an impossible task laid out before it.

Pumpkin.5169:

T1 was JQ, DB and BG at the linkings. TC swapped with JQ briefly.

It was actually the opposite, TC were the normal T1 server and JQ rolled T1 for a week or so which just happened to correspond to the re-links and then got kittened by anet with no link and TC rolling T1 the first week of the relinks.

Exactly. The week previous before the link, TC tanked and JQ pushed up because JQ wanted to go to T1. They went, TC didn’t and got a link. And then went back to T1.

It’s not perfect, but seems to be working better than what we had right before the linkings. My one gripe is that being on a “guest” server, we no longer have an identity. Our actual server name is not used in WvW in any meaningful way. It is harder to recruit people or be recruited in a guild because not everyone on the map is on your server and if you join a cross-server guild, that may work against you when the next linking occurs within 2 months and that guild’s main server is now either your enemy or in a completely different tier. Voice communication is also harder to coordinate with multiple servers that switch every 2 months. I really think server merges are the next logical step, because at this point, I already don’t feel like I’m on my own server anyway. At least a merge would give guest servers a more permanent identity to what we have now, and allow us to build a sense of community instead of feeling like gypsies. I also hate knowing that I’m fighting against the wonderful people I was linked with previously…it doesn’t feel right.

It might work when low pop server also get the ‘1800 gem’ transfer treatment. now guilds cheat to cheap server, to still get a bandwagon effect, wich used to cost 1000+
gems, anod now is 400 gem cheap.

But this overly cheap bandwagon module (400 gems to cheap server, linked with big server), also kills the option to ‘pre-determine’ next week matchups.

In EU the ‘matchup determinator’ Though Desolation was to strong, so they took away server link. The same server link was giving to FSP. FSP being very close to top, this was basically -2 desolation +2 fsp result. But it didnt end there. For some hugely wrong reason the system thought it would be good to set a second server on FSP. Result, not only had desolation -1 effect, people got demotivated and left the server, making a clear -2 effect, FSP got double extra people + more transfers then ever, result +3. End effect is FSP got +5 population, desolation -5 compared to peak result last season.

And the most hilarous thing in the world? After all this kitten, desolation is still full, preventing any kind of recovering with incoming transfers (wich now will not happen anyway cause the ‘transfer-guilds’ choose now the cheap link servers (400 gems) to transfer.

I was fine in the first weeks, now it totally broke EU imo. The second server linking was an epic mistake (first one was actually good).

Pumpkin.5169:

Exactly. The week previous before the link, TC tanked and JQ pushed up because JQ wanted to go to T1. They went, TC didn’t and got a link. And then went back to T1.

And, instead of using actual numbers like a logic person would, we have Anet. Not only did they remove our link, they locked us. Then tried to justify it by saying we have a greater population than Mag and BP. Which is really LoL worthy. Does anyone that actually plays WvW believe that???

Now today they open everyone but, BG. smh

DeWolfe.2174:

Pumpkin.5169:

Exactly. The week previous before the link, TC tanked and JQ pushed up because JQ wanted to go to T1. They went, TC didn’t and got a link. And then went back to T1.

And, instead of using actual numbers like a logic person would, we have Anet. Not only did they remove our link, they locked us. Then tried to justify it by saying we have a greater population than Mag and BP. Which is really LoL worthy. Does anyone that actually plays WvW believe that???

Now today they open everyone but, BG. smh

Its past time for them to consider a server and its link in the pop cap somehow. Looking at the T1 scores for the past 2 weeks there is no way Maguuma should be open, presumably there are a lot of maguuma players actually playing from their linked server.

And I really can’t see any difference in the JQ population now and what it was a month ago that JQ should have been locked and now open.

Apart from population disparity itself, server linking and server caps and how they interrelate is now the biggest issue for the mode IMO, bigger than deployable cannons, bigger than further scoring changes.

morrolan.9608:

Apart from population disparity itself, server linking and server caps and how they interrelate is now the biggest issue for the mode IMO, bigger than deployable cannons, bigger than further scoring changes.

IMO they should look at how servers perform without links vs how they perform with links, to find out why certain links work and why others don’t. Look at JQ when they were linked compared to now. Before, they were winning against the other linked servers, albeit not by a steamrolling amount. Now they’re being steamrolled constantly, because there’s no link to keep them afloat.

2 month relinking isn’t going to fix this, it needs to be done every 3-4 weeks so you can keep track of the servers and how they’re performing, along with what is and isn’t breaking a server.

I really don’t think that the links or the lack of them are the problem. The problem is that in two months, so much can happen and the servers status be completely different from what they were when they were made/unmade. DB is the best example right now, in two weeks it went from Tier 1 to dead. The votes for the links in the poll were divided between 1 month and 3 month links, and ANet decided to 2 months to make both options close. But from what we have seen now with the links in the game, one month seems even more than before a better timeframe for the linking changes. Maybe another poll could change it.

RyuDragnier.9476:

2 month relinking isn’t going to fix this, it needs to be done every 3-4 weeks so you can keep track of the servers and how they’re performing, along with what is and isn’t breaking a server.

Relinking every 4 weeks is absolutely necessary at this point.

Anet needs to buff JQ by giving us 40 slot bags. If you are going to 4v1 the smallest (T1 NA historically) at least allow us to get more loot before the zerglings over power us, or we have to go sell allowing the blobs to ppt.

1-up, 1-down system definetly, just don’t create power tiers with linking, like NA(or old NA, i’m EU so am not up to date with situation there since last linking).
1 month linking might prevent some of the bandwagoning, since it would basily double gem requirement, but i’m not realy sure on this one, since that also doubles community shuffling.

Server merges instead of linkings are the solution.
Server communities can never establish if people get rotated in and out every 1 or 2 months.

Malediktus.3740:

Server merges instead of linkings are the solution.
Server communities can never establish if people get rotated in and out every 1 or 2 months.

This might be the best solution in the end. Like i said in post above, there is a lot of community rotation going on, i can’t even track guilds on my server+linking server.

Malediktus.3740:

Server merges instead of linkings are the solution.
Server communities can never establish if people get rotated in and out every 1 or 2 months.

My server WSR already has a great community thank you very much. So what if we are linked a lot? Most of the time when we bump into other WSR players we reminisce about old times, swap tips and if someone isn’t in a guild they are found a guild to suit them.

@McKenna, yes the way Glicko accounts for change taking 4 weeks is definitely causing a lot of problems with linkings at the moment. I said this in the Gunnar’s Hold thread that they just haven’t got their appropriate match ups yet. 1 up 1 down seems like the best fit for moving forward especially if more frequent linkings are taking place.

If WvW starts gaining more population eventually, is there the possibility of less linked servers? If so would you be implementing something to act as a spreading out force to counter act how stacking on heavy population servers leads to more rewards through constant commanders and higher numbers to throw at things till they break?

Yes, whenever this poll comes out, voting 1 up 1 down. Makes a week’s effort give meaning and also allows for servers to push up (or others down) even with some coverage imbalance.

Glicko became pointless as soon as linkings started. Only something as crude as 1up-1down can work in the current state. Rankings systems like Elo and Glicko require some amount of consistency in the competitiveness of the field. Linking completely breaks that consistency.

Glicko is garbage, it doesn’t work for WvW. Get rid of it, it does more harm than good.

Deciding match make ups with Dice would work better and be more fun.

Malediktus.3740:

Server merges instead of linkings are the solution.
Server communities can never establish if people get rotated in and out every 1 or 2 months.

+1
Server linking should be a temporary fix, to reduce the large population imbalances there were. Once the gap is reduced, we need to settle the linking (aka merge) and let the rest unfold on its own.

Being in one of the smallest servers, I need to be given time to fit in the new community, otherwise I count for nothing, you can just delete my server altogether.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Hey everyone,

I wanted to address the idea of moving world linking to monthly instead of every 2 months, since it is being brought up more and more frequently.

Or, how about that this is supposed to be a competitive game mode? We don’t want you making our teams up for us. Especially don’t want you tearing the community apart again a month later. What the hell kind of competition is that? What the hell kind of “World” are we supposed to have with that? If you are going to do that, then remove Worlds from this completely and go to colors, numbers, or whatever. Because we’re entering the “stick a fork in it” zone for “World vs World”.

Linking and the instability of it is not healthy. If I wanted mindless zerging I’d go into EotM. Which pretty much is exactly what “WvW” is becoming.

Scrap Glicko, it never worked because of bandwagon servers and mass exoduses.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Hey everyone,

I wanted to address the idea of moving world linking to monthly instead of every 2 months, since it is being brought up more and more frequently.

The team isn’t opposed to this idea; we actually think it would be beneficial to move to monthly because it would allow us to iterate faster on how we are calculating which worlds should be linked. However, the main reason for not doing this right now is the matchmaking algorithm, Glicko. Each time we shuffle worlds via world linking it takes about 4 weeks’ worth of matches before Glicko begins to reliably match make those new worlds into balanced matches. If we did world linking monthly, Glicko would not be able to create balanced matchups.

Our next priority poll is going to be asking if players would rather have us work on adding rewards to skirmishes (and possibly other feedback items being collected from this thread) or replace Glicko matchmaking with a 1-up 1-down system (wherein the winner moves up a tier and the loser moves down a tier.) The 1-up 1-down system should work better with monthly linkings than Glicko, so we are most likely going to hold off on 1 month linkings until that system is in.

Another possibility we could pursue is 1 month linkings, but use the Glicko offset system to guarantee the matches. Alternatively, we could manually change Glicko ratings to what we believe they should be for each world. Either option would force worlds to start out closer to being in the correct tier and thus give better matches faster. These options are contentious, so even if everyone on the forums seemed to like this idea it would be something we would poll on.

How will you address the mass migration of players every time re-linking happens? Vabbi is a perfect example. It received a huge amount of transfers when it was linked with Deso and then FSP. Its increased population caused it to be linked with the lower ranked Gunnar’s Hold and then all those transfers cleared out and Gunnar’s Hold is basically not linked with any server right now.

I’ll vote for 1-up 1-down.

Server linkings don’t care, if it helps the population imbalances do it every week if you have to.

Glicko is gonna get voted out so hard, I don’t think you really need a poll for it. Honestly I hope you’re already working on an alternative. This is one area where I think Anet really should’ve known a long time ago that glicko wasn’t working. You don’t need players to tell you that.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Hey everyone,

I wanted to address the idea of moving world linking to monthly instead of every 2 months, since it is being brought up more and more frequently.

The team isn’t opposed to this idea; we actually think it would be beneficial to move to monthly because it would allow us to iterate faster on how we are calculating which worlds should be linked. However, the main reason for not doing this right now is the matchmaking algorithm, Glicko. Each time we shuffle worlds via world linking it takes about 4 weeks’ worth of matches before Glicko begins to reliably match make those new worlds into balanced matches. If we did world linking monthly, Glicko would not be able to create balanced matchups.

Our next priority poll is going to be asking if players would rather have us work on adding rewards to skirmishes (and possibly other feedback items being collected from this thread) or replace Glicko matchmaking with a 1-up 1-down system (wherein the winner moves up a tier and the loser moves down a tier.) The 1-up 1-down system should work better with monthly linkings than Glicko, so we are most likely going to hold off on 1 month linkings until that system is in.

Another possibility we could pursue is 1 month linkings, but use the Glicko offset system to guarantee the matches. Alternatively, we could manually change Glicko ratings to what we believe they should be for each world. Either option would force worlds to start out closer to being in the correct tier and thus give better matches faster. These options are contentious, so even if everyone on the forums seemed to like this idea it would be something we would poll on.

TBH I don’t think players care that much about glicko volatility at all now, in fact they would probably prefer it more volatile than having 1 T1/2 server in T3/4 thrashing them for multiple weeks or having servers getting screwed by having no links and getting full status then having population migrations with barely no room to even try and make it better themselves.

This is a huge issue yet you don’t seem to understand how big an issue it is. And with this demonstrated lack of understanding I don’t expect players will receive making wholesale manual glicko adjustments well.

So why not simply have a poll on making links monthly.

Look at this post, it puts the issue quite eloquently, or look at the other thread on Gunnars Hold:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Linking-transfer-system-annihilating-servers/first#post6342838

1-up 1-down is going to be an even bigger disaster most weeks. Try something with a bit of latency, e.g. you have to win/lose 2 weeks in a row to guarantee a tier move.

I’ve always been for 1 up 1 down, but… that was before linking when there was a wider range of servers to have closer matchups between tiers. Now that we have half the matchups and also linking for tiers by population size in place, I don’t see this working at the moment.

The only t4 server that had a chance to compete for a decent match in t3 was the 4 headed monster, and even then they lost. So unless they plan on balancing populations out to that tier and the one next to it, I don’t see 1 up 1 down working well.

But probably still better than glicko which takes too much time to adjust to new links, especially if they go down to monthly relinks.

This problem can be fixed immediately by removing all linked servers and just having host servers. But obviously Arena net loves the money going into servers transfers. In terms of population; this will obviously depend on what servers will open up. Hypothetically if all linked servers are removed, maximum population for all the host servers should increase by ‘X’ depending on what the current population of GW2 players participate in WvW. From there population will largely be determined by what server buys what guilds, politics and loyalty.

If you merge servers, over time you will have exactly the same problems as before. People will keep transfering in and out, but you will have no way to manually adjust populations to balance them again. It will be exactly as before, but with 4 tiers instead of 8.

1 up 1 down sounds great on paper but will be a disaster ingame. Servers are not perfectly balanced between tiers. Get ready to stomp other servers in one week and be stomped in the next one, without having a balanced match in between, and second place servers being stuck in second place forever.

Glicko also sucks, btw. And it’s sad that it can’t adjust itself in one month.

There are too many variables to account for to be adding new features without understanding the problems of the old ones. At this point it’s pure whack-a-mole.

The issue needs to be looked at on a player skill/competency level. Simply having enough numbers isn’t balancing out WvW as anticipated. We can shift populations around, merge servers, lock servers, force transfers, etc etc, but it’s not helping because not every player is equal.

The most valuable players are skilled/fun commanders that can generate a following and play regularly for reasonable hours. Most of the quality commanders are either on a strong home server or are moving as part of an alliance on each relink. Either way, there isn’t a balancing of commanders happening that is allowing for 4 tiers worth of servers to exist. This issue is compounded when you consider the different timezones — some timezones simply don’t have enough commanders across all the servers as a rule.

How to solve this problem? Can we incentivise commanders to balance? No — commanders are like any other players, they want to play with other commanders for their own peace and sake of mind, no one wants to carry a server. The only workable solution is to reduce the number of host servers.

I am only talking about EU, can’t speak for US

Get rid of the linking
Close some server, the ppl on those server get a free transfer to another server, so the population of the closed server spreads a bit.

Limit Servertransfer to 2 transfer per year per Account.

At this moment we got 27 servers in EU half of them are GRAVEYARDS so it’s simple, start to merge and stop the bright ideas please…

This is not a server transfer problem, it’s a population one. WvW it’s made to play in servers with population and those players are looking for it to enjoy the gametype, nothing more.

Merging is a bad idea without having the server agreeing to this merge. If you want to go to another server, then move there. Linking works great and merging wouldn’t solve any of the issues we have. People that don’t have any connection to the server they are on would still move to winning servers.

1up ,1down is NOT a good matchmaking system, it will lead to blowout matches more often, because if there is a difference between the tiers, then moving up or down a tier will always lead to blowout. Just go back in history and apply 1up/1down and think it through how tiers would look like. Servers may actually start to fight for running second instead of first, if they get blown out of the water in the higher tier.

We need a better matchmaking system than Glicko, one that reacts faster and gives less randomness creating blowout matches and the easiest way is to make manual matchups that include Glicko as a factor but also other variables. If you know a server cannot handle a specific tier, why even giving it a chance to land in that tier.
But I am sure it isn’t hard to watch past matchups and just tweek the formulas to make the system better if you really need to have an automatic system.

How would 1 up 1 down affect servers that place second in a matchup. I kind of feel that such a system could greatly increase the potential of burnout for players creating an even bigger rift between those that just want to find fights finding it harder and harder because servers will become almost entirely focused on grinding PPT. For all the faults of glicko, and there are many, it can sometimes give a little breathing room for servers.

I think 1 up 1 down is worth a try, just like most of the things we’ve been trying lately. If it doesn’t work, not much is really lost. Maybe a matchup or two

It just feels like WvW is a mess currently. The linking is creating and destroying monsters as it goes (DB being an example). Two months is just long enough for a server to go full, then get a large population moved into their link, and then lose the link thereby tumbling them into space. Guilds aren’t likely to move every month, so it might cut down on some of the linked server bandwagoning.

It doesn’t feel that you guys can keep up with the changes that happen every 2 months, not that I blame you. The WvW community is a volatile jumble of people.

This particular linking was a disaster for my server since we ended up unlinked and against the giants who did get linked. Right now it’s either wait for a matchup where we are mostly evenly matched in numbers (T3?) or get stomped for a few more weeks in t2, because glicko can be bothered to move fast enough to get us out of there. But here’s the thing…. say we get paired in October. Cool, we get some more numbers. We may be able to hold our own in T2, which is good. But if stuff happens in t1 that causes instability — say a server losing its link and falling apart like DB —and JQ gets that unlucky roll up…. we risk getting screwed and are unlinked and set back to where are right now. Two months is just enough time for that to happen.

What about removing links from tier 1 and tier 2 servers, and only linking servers that are in tier 3/4 and possibly creating a fifth tier. This would make it harder to just bandwagon up to upper tiers because of the lower prices for linked servers every relinking.

I would suggest there be 2 servers linked together for a total of 6 servers each for t3/t4/t5 (for NA), no more tri/quad server messes. Keep tier 1 and tier 2 unlinked. I think this would be a much more balanced approach and would give players more choice when trying to find a tier that suits their playstyle.

Ultra Hades.4691:

There are too many variables to account for to be adding new features without understanding the problems of the old ones.

Actually there is only one variable that matter.

Tiers.

Thats the reason WvW cant be “fixed” no matter what you do. Anet are basicly saying they need 4 matchups, period, and trying to twist and turn like snakes around that. What if could be any number? 3? 5? 8? Just randomize a third of servers to a faction on a 1-2 months cycle, reset glicko to 0 and gain ranks within each faction based on performance and boom done. Hell we would effectivly get viable “tournaments” for free (or at least a cycle of winners).

Server linking is a joke. Whatever time you have, the French Servers pop up with Zoners of 50+, whilst you maybe can be lucky to have 10. Early morning? French Zoner capping your stuff and you have absolutely no chance to do anything against this. They loose once a fight? Uuhhh the typical Vizu Zoneblob shows up. Of course is there not even a tiny Chance for a win against them, they just outnumber whereever they can. And no top of that they so or so siege the hell out of this game. GG Anet, i’m pretty sure, you are NOT Neutral to this, else you won’t give such an advantage to 3 French Servers, merged to one giant Blob.

If I look at bobsled I see that all bobs have the same crew size. There are no bobs packed with 12 persons competing with 4 men bobs . What I see is, that nations send several teams of the same size to the start.

Is it technically possible to decouple the homeworld from the number of WvW teams a server can send into fights? Would it be possible to introduce an overflow system, that opens a new WvW team as soon as the first one reaches the cap? Would it technically possible that players have to register for the server they want to play?

The main goal should be to create units of the same size that you can link. Otherwise you will always have very severe imbalances.

@Belenwyn
EOTM has a serverindepended system and blowouts still happen. Additionally this really would destroy any serverpride left, any guilds and anyone that would like to run wvw with friends. I would like to know what your motivation is to play WvW Belenwyn.

Servers in a matchup have to have similar population, on this we agree. For this we have the linkings and the matchmaking system that should look for this to happen.

@Rink

The motivation would be to win the weekly match with your team besides the rewards for skirmishes. In addition each team would contribute to the weekly performance of the represented server. Vabbi I would fight for Vabbi and Jade Sea I to III would fight for Jade Sea. Compare it with the 5 year ranking the UEFA publishes. Each team of a nation contributes to the coefficient of the nation. The national coefficient determines the ranking.

Do you play EOTM for PPT or rankings? EOTM is more of a waiting hall to enter WvW or a ground to level very fast. Winning is not the most prominent goal there.

The current problem with linking is that there are to less units to links to reach an equilibrium. In addition the sizes of the units differ very drastically. To create more similar units you have to permanently lock several servers. This would exclude friends from joining on servers.

Therefore we need a system that let friends a guild members play together WvW without creating abominations that stomp every other server into the ground by the shear mass of players.

But if Vabbi I is full, then additional guild memers wouldn’t be able to join there and you couldn’t join your friends. Also wouldn’t that lead to lots of wvw maps with drastically reduced number of players per map? What if no server is able to fill up their “team” with 20 players? What do you do with those additional players that also want to play?

I think the population imbalance has to be addressed but it already is through linkings and matchmaking. It just has to adapt faster.

Rink.6108:

But if Vabbi I is full, then additional guild memers wouldn’t be able to join there and you couldn’t join your friends. Also wouldn’t that lead to lots of wvw maps with drastically reduced number of players per map? What if no server is able to fill up their “team” with 20 players? What do you do with those additional players that also want to play?

I think the population imbalance has to be addressed but it already is through linkings and matchmaking. It just has to adapt faster.

If Vabbi I is full Vabbi II will be created and with the next matchup all guild members will be put in the same team.

The left-overs can be put in overflow servers. You can bundle all left-overs from all homeworlds in theirs own matchups.