Guild Wars 2

Preface: this is about server population panning out, not night capping.
Assign servers a WvW time slot, like business hours. Not based on time zone.

e.g.:
Server group A is 6am – 6pm
Server group B is 12pm – 12am
Server group C is 6pm – 6am
Server group D is 12am – 12pm
Server groups will only battle servers in the same group.
If this happened at launch, players would have selected their server based on which WvW time slot suits them best. Everyone will do this, everyone will be able to participate. Population will split up properly.

The thing is, Kaineng will probably not be fighting Jade Quarry anytime soon. Even if their prowess skyrockets through the roof. There is simply no harm in having a smaller cycle of servers in which you face.

Secondly; its probably not healthy for anyone to be playing more than 12 hours a day, so it is very likely if they chose their server correctly, they can always play WvW at a time of their choosing.

Thirdly; stop the free server transfers and start up your guesting feature Arenanet.

No one’s time will be more precious than the other persons. If you have a fixed schedule of play, you can easily find a time suitable. If you have your whole day free, you can play when everyone else can play, no one is cutting you out (aside from the queues I guess). Perhaps they can make the Saturday to Sunday timeslot connected for an extra 12 hours of play.

Such a solution will not resolve scoreboard imbalances for 2 reasons – fair weather players and free server transfers. Even if you do get a group of servers with exact same hours of play one will invariably rise to the top, resulting in the same situation we already have.

Tzash.5748:

Such a solution will not resolve scoreboard imbalances for 2 reasons – fair weather players and free server transfers. Even if you do get a group of servers with exact same hours of play one will invariably rise to the top, resulting in the same situation we already have.

Ok, I will amend point 3. The guesting thing was to insinuate free server transfers should stop (which is apparently when guesting will kick in).

There is nothing wrong with one server being good. As long as everyone knows for 12 (or however many seems balanced) hours they can consistently duke it out, everyone has a fighting chance.

That still does not solve the issue really. I am European, with a lot of American friends. Am I supposed to pick a server within a different group just to be able to WvW, and not even be able to do so with friends?
What about those with late-night jobs? They just have to go to a different server than their friends?

You say that people will have chosen a server based on the time WvW is open, but honestly, that would not have happened because of the above. The majority of the people would have chosen the server where their friends are.

Ok. Lets say you have a Monday to Friday night job, and I have a Monday to Friday day job. We won’t be able to play together during the weekdays anyways, whats the harm in you being on a different server to me? Just because we are on the same server, doesn’t mean we can play together. On the flipside, suppose I come home from work at 5pm, and you go to work at 9pm, whats to stop us from choosing the 12pm to 12am server group? Has Arenanet actually assessed how much time players put into WvW anyways? Surely they don’t expect someone to play for 12 hrs straight, maybe not even 6hrs.

I’m Aussie, and I have an American friend. We are on the same server. We never get to WvW together because of our times, does being on the same server benefit us?

Only on weekends. Which is why I said, in my OP, that the Saturday time can be linked to the Sunday time, for a full 36 hour slugfest, to finish off the week.

Arenanet advertised a feature called Guesting, where you can join another player’s server for PvE purposes, most people probably forgot about this already because its been not talked about for ages now.

The thing is, Arenanet wanted the population to spread out, yet they give us NO precursor or incentive to do so, other than how cool our server name sounds.

If a player decides to stick to a server with ‘incorrect’ time for WvW this is the scenario that would happen:

Lets say this player has a night job, and all his friends have day jobs. When you are sleeping for your night job, your friends are playing. When you have time to play the game after your job shift finishes, your friends are at work. The cycle repeats itself. This player chose to be on a server with his friends, but won’t get to WvW with them either way, even if its 24hr battles.

Theres also a lot of things you can do with a timed battlefield, it allows for the devs to add special rulesets for particular periods of time.

How much cooler would it be if at the beginning of WvW everyday, everyone rallied into the map together.

We don’t want timed battlegrounds WvW is fine the way it is. Alterac Valley can fill that void for people that want structured Mass combat (people still play that game don’t they?)

It’d be best if you don’t answer for the entire community. Certainly a lot of people don’t find WvW fine the way it is. You should add an argument to the discussion too.

And I reiterate, despite Arenanet wanting the population to spread itself out, they really haven’t provided any incentive to, which is problematic.

kKagari.6804:

It’d be best if you don’t answer for the entire community. Certainly a lot of people don’t find WvW fine the way it is. You should add an argument to the discussion too.

And I reiterate, despite Arenanet wanting the population to spread itself out, they really haven’t provided any incentive to, which is problematic.

I’m not speaking for the community, I said we. We might not cover you, We might not cover the next person, but We used in the sentence I gave does cover those of Us that do not see a problem with WvW the way it is.

Splitting a community into 12 hour shifts doesn’t help those players in +6 timezones or -4 Timezones. Splitting servers (Another proposed solution from a different thread) into US, Oceanic, Asian, Russian, EU etc etc wont fix things either because people with more time on their hands will run alarm clock raids. Locking times into 12 hour matches changes the whole scope of the WvW game, it may as well be sPvP. I could go on but the topic and it’s proposed solutions have been flogged to death.

Elthurien.8356:

kKagari.6804:

It’d be best if you don’t answer for the entire community. Certainly a lot of people don’t find WvW fine the way it is. You should add an argument to the discussion too.

And I reiterate, despite Arenanet wanting the population to spread itself out, they really haven’t provided any incentive to, which is problematic.

I’m not speaking for the community, I said we. We might not cover you, We might not cover the next person, but We used in the sentence I gave does cover those of Us that do not see a problem with WvW the way it is.

Well, ok then. We find WvW in its current state very problematic. We are looking for alternatives. We don’t really like Matt Witter’s response to the community.

What they need to do is make this Guildwars, not Serverwars

Instead of pitting severs against each other, create Guild Alliances (or battlegroups if you will)

• Each Alliance has core hours, some are the same some are different.
• Guilds affiliate themselves with an Alliance that matches their core playing time (as OP mentioned, but this is not about a server its about a group of guilds)
• If you want to pvp more than your guild’s Alliance allows, you join another guild with a different time slot…..as you can already do.

Zindel.8673:

What they need to do is make this Guildwars, not Serverwars

Instead of pitting severs against each other, create Guild Alliances (or battlegroups if you will)

• Each Alliance has core hours, some are the same some are different.
• Guilds affiliate themselves with an Alliance that matches their core playing time (as OP mentioned, but this is not about a server its about a group of guilds)
• If you want to pvp more than your guild’s Alliance allows, you join another guild with a different time slot…..as you can already do.

I can see this work too, as long as the assigned hours are pitted against each at the same time, things will work. But here it is again: we need a guided incentive to change servers, otherwise the population will never split evenly.

So…if a person gets home at 4….and can play for 4 hours, they can only wvw for 2? Or someone can play for a few hours in the morning and then at night…they can only wvw in one time? People dont fall into neat categories. And at high end, wvw is what there is to do. If you dont like the fact the battle goes on 24 hours a day…..oh well. This is how the game is shrug

springelf.9236:

So…if a person gets home at 4….and can play for 4 hours, they can only wvw for 2? Or someone can play for a few hours in the morning and then at night…they can only wvw in one time? People dont fall into neat categories. And at high end, wvw is what there is to do. If you dont like the fact the battle goes on 24 hours a day…..oh well. This is how the game is shrug

Did you not read all of my post? theres a time slot for 12pm to 12am. If you got home at 4pm, you can play for 8hrs straight. That is quite reasonable.

Nothing wrong with WvW server wars imo. Some win, some lose, if u dont like that, then sPvP is there for a more structured game play. WvW is suppose to chaotic, unpredictable and unfair. i love it.

Actually, its not anything to do with fairness or not, there’s too many things to factor into that already. But if Arenanet adopted this strategy for the first few weeks, and turned off server transfers, they can slowly add increments of half an hr to each time slot, slowly expanding it to 24hrs.

Once people have settled into their servers, a full guild transfer is less likely due to server costs.

kKagari.6804:

Actually, its not anything to do with fairness or not, there’s too many things to factor into that already. But if Arenanet adopted this strategy for the first few weeks, and turned off server transfers, they can slowly add increments of half an hr to each time slot, slowly expanding it to 24hrs.

Once people have settled into their servers, a full guild transfer is less likely due to server costs.

I have to ask, what is the point of this thread? not being sarcastic or anything, but why are you even talking about this? this is something that, in your opinion, they should have done on launch. they didn’t. so, again, what is the point of this thread?

also, you say 12am-12pm, and 12pm-12am. but by whose watch? their is more then one timezone in the world you know. and that also doesn’t cover people who have an erratic play schedual. I am a college student. I’ve played at 10AM. I’ve played at 3PM. I’ve even stayed up playing as late as 1-2AM. so whitch timezone would work best for me?

kitanas.3596:

kKagari.6804:

Actually, its not anything to do with fairness or not, there’s too many things to factor into that already. But if Arenanet adopted this strategy for the first few weeks, and turned off server transfers, they can slowly add increments of half an hr to each time slot, slowly expanding it to 24hrs.

Once people have settled into their servers, a full guild transfer is less likely due to server costs.

I have to ask, what is the point of this thread? not being sarcastic or anything, but why are you even talking about this? this is something that, in your opinion, they should have done on launch. they didn’t. so, again, what is the point of this thread?

also, you say 12am-12pm, and 12pm-12am. but by whose watch? their is more then one timezone in the world you know. and that also doesn’t cover people who have an erratic play schedual. I am a college student. I’ve played at 10AM. I’ve played at 3PM. I’ve even stayed up playing as late as 1-2AM. so whitch timezone would work best for me?

I think the player should be deciding which timezone is better for them, its a preference anyhow.

Put it this way, if you can play for 2 hrs at any given time in the day, any server will be suitable because you will always have a time where you can WvW. The thing is, the time slot you’ve selected allows you to play for 12 hours, no one is taking that away from you. If you are up at a time where there is no WvW, well, you’re not the only one.

The point of this topic is to invoke a discussion, just like the rest of the topics in the forum. That’s what forums are for. I’m simply outlining that what Arenanet wants – spread out population, will not happen if they give no precursor or proper incentive to do so.

If you think everyone should stay quiet just because Arenanet hasn’t done something, then these forums would be extremely silent. I suppose they can get the CC team to police that too. “No discussions, infraction for you sir!”.

And for the last bloody time, it is NOT done by timezone, it will NOT matter who’s clock it is based on because all 24 hours are covered with 6 hour overlap.

Abosolutely fair solution and i totaly agree with this idea what have been presented by kKagari.6804. Ofc some of ppl will disagree, there is always someone who disagree with everythink especialy FR/SP servers who cover wide range of timezones. But i believe this anti-night capping system will find lot of support by players who have their own lifes too and dont wanna stay in 3w 12h/day.

KiNgPiN.2075:

Abosolutely fair solution and i totaly agree with this idea what have been presented by kKagari.6804. Ofc some of ppl will disagree, there is always someone who disagree with everythink especialy FR/SP servers who cover wide range of timezones. But i believe this anti-night capping system will find lot of support by players who have their own lifes too and dont wanna stay in 3w 12h/day.

The thing is, anyone with a semblance of ‘scheduled’ play – will not notice a difference at all. i.e. If you play 4 hours every night and have selected a correct time slot, you’ll play during the same time as you did with a 24hr battle. It is unreasonable to conclude that we need to cater for people that play more than 12 hours a day, and people that play spread out can easily find a time slot to play in.

And anyway real power of server can be seen when all 4 maps of 3W are full by players of each of 3 server, not when one or 2 servers are taking advantage just because they have more “nightwalkers” then the other server.

kKagari.6804, why should I be prevented from a part of the game I like simply because of my schedule?

and is this supposed to provide more balanced and fun matches? because if it is then you might want to consider this. in a matchmaking system, you go up and down in the rankings until you find servers you are balanced against. the only exceptions are the top and bottom ranked matchups, as they have nowhere left to go. with the current setup, their are two “brackets” US and EU. if your idea is implemented, that number would be quadrupled to 8, 4 for US and 4 for EU. how does this provide a more fun and balanced matchups?

EDIT:

And anyway real power of server can be seen when all 4 maps of 3W are full by players of each of 3 server, not when one or 2 servers are taking advantage just because they have more “nightwalkers” then the other server.

no, the power of a server is the ability to maintain a 24/7 force. that is what defines a strong server, as the rankings show

You are only waving the ‘prevented from playing the game’ card because it is 24hrs now. If Arenanet did 12hrs from the start, it’d have solved their population problem. You are not prevented from doing anything as much as any other player is. Its an invalid argument. You can’t farm in Orr if you aren’t near level 80, are you going to ask why that is the case too?

What WOULD be preventing you due to schedule is if there were ONLY timeslots available at ONE selected time of the day, which is NOT THE CASE. If you can log on at any selected time of the day, then there is a server with a time slot relevant to you. It is up to the player to decide which time is most suitable for them. Certainly you can’t expect the developers to decide that for you too.

Server balance is a complete sham. Are you telling me just because a server does poorly, everyone on that server is playing a poor level? How is taking 100 people and putting them on a singular map supposed to correctly discern the prowess of a server with thousands of players. You’d never actually achieve it because the developers can only take a small sample of correct information given how big the scope of things are. Its different in sPvP, sample sizes are way smaller, and players collectively agree on what are valid builds and what aren’t.

The other thing is, regardless of how many servers cycles it will create, it doesnt even matter because of anonymity. If you are telling me you can tell which server you are playing against simply by their tactics I call BS, and a yardhouse full of it as well.

And you can see how well all the servers are doing now to maintain a 24/7 presence. 4-5 US servers tops, have this, and that doesn’t even begin to take in account server transfers and people leaving the game.

What’s more is that if all it takes is to ‘maintain’ a presence, player skill goes completely out the door, is that what balance and fun is supposed to be based around? Having numbers instead of superior tactics and player involvement?

Finally: answer this, what steps has Arenanet taken in order to achieve their goal of server population balance. Please stay on this topic as this is what my topic is about.

getting angry here are we?

If they had said that it would be 12-hour matches from the beginning, of course I would have accepted it. after all, that would have been what the devs said. that is not what they said. they said it would be a 2-week, persistant world vs world combat. that is what I expected, and that is what I got.

They also never said that WVW would be balanced. in fact, they stated the opposite. so your points about balance don’t really matter. this even applies to population balance. they put the matchmaking system in place solely to prevent complete washouts.

what makes a sever strong is it’s ability to organize. the most basic organizational skill for a server is getting people to show up where and when they are needed. this matters not only in a tactical sense, but a strategic sense also.

I payed for the game, and I should be able to play it whenever I want.

Breaking into time slots is a terrible idea. Terrible. I want to play whenever I want, for how long I want. And because someone doesn’t want that, I should be forced into playing at specific times, when I maybe don’t want to play it? Why not make dungeons only available from 5-6PM.

Population imbalances do not ruin anything. If I play for 12 hours, and then a server brings in their night pop and take everything, does that mean I did not have fun playing for 12 hours?

In case you haven’t noticed, you get nothing for winning a WvW match. And you get nothing from losing. Why do people place so much on winning and losing when it doesn’t matter?

Yerffejy.6538:

I payed for the game, and I should be able to play it whenever I want.

Breaking into time slots is a terrible idea. Terrible. I want to play whenever I want, for how long I want. And because someone doesn’t want that, I should be forced into playing at specific times, when I maybe don’t want to play it? Why not make dungeons only available from 5-6PM.

Population imbalances do not ruin anything. If I play for 12 hours, and then a server brings in their night pop and take everything, does that mean I did not have fun playing for 12 hours?

In case you haven’t noticed, you get nothing for winning a WvW match. And you get nothing from losing. Why do people place so much on winning and losing when it doesn’t matter?

Be realistic; do you WvW 12 hours a day? If you selected a correct time slot, it would not matter to your ‘play whenever’ ideal.
How anyone can find it fun to fight against no opposition is beyond me. Theres a whole sticky of people showing their dismay at getting onto WvW and having no opposition at all. But thats off topic. Population balance is what Arenanet WANTS.

kitanas.3596:

getting angry here are we?

If they had said that it would be 12-hour matches from the beginning, of course I would have accepted it. after all, that would have been what the devs said. that is not what they said. they said it would be a 2-week, persistant world vs world combat. that is what I expected, and that is what I got.

They also never said that WVW would be balanced. in fact, they stated the opposite. so your points about balance don’t really matter. this even applies to population balance. they put the matchmaking system in place solely to prevent complete washouts.

what makes a sever strong is it’s ability to organize. the most basic organizational skill for a server is getting people to show up where and when they are needed. this matters not only in a tactical sense, but a strategic sense also.

Sometimes just having the passion and vision for something to work doesn’t make it work. They WANTED server population balance. Why else would give us free server transfers? Oh btw, they told us WvW was going to be a 24hr endless battle. Not seeing that happening either.

And c’mon really, if they REALLY thought it wasn’t meant to be balanced, why are they even fixing the scoring.
Why IS there scoring?

kKagari.6804:

kitanas.3596:

getting angry here are we?

If they had said that it would be 12-hour matches from the beginning, of course I would have accepted it. after all, that would have been what the devs said. that is not what they said. they said it would be a 2-week, persistant world vs world combat. that is what I expected, and that is what I got.

They also never said that WVW would be balanced. in fact, they stated the opposite. so your points about balance don’t really matter. this even applies to population balance. they put the matchmaking system in place solely to prevent complete washouts.

what makes a sever strong is it’s ability to organize. the most basic organizational skill for a server is getting people to show up where and when they are needed. this matters not only in a tactical sense, but a strategic sense also.

Sometimes just having the passion and vision for something to work doesn’t make it work. They WANTED server population balance. Why else would give us free server transfers?

so you could find the sever that suits PVE and WVW need? so that if you wanted to f a big WVW allience, but your PVE guild settled elsewhere, you wouldn’t have to choose between the two?

kitanas.3596:

kKagari.6804:

kitanas.3596:

getting angry here are we?

If they had said that it would be 12-hour matches from the beginning, of course I would have accepted it. after all, that would have been what the devs said. that is not what they said. they said it would be a 2-week, persistant world vs world combat. that is what I expected, and that is what I got.

They also never said that WVW would be balanced. in fact, they stated the opposite. so your points about balance don’t really matter. this even applies to population balance. they put the matchmaking system in place solely to prevent complete washouts.

what makes a sever strong is it’s ability to organize. the most basic organizational skill for a server is getting people to show up where and when they are needed. this matters not only in a tactical sense, but a strategic sense also.

Sometimes just having the passion and vision for something to work doesn’t make it work. They WANTED server population balance. Why else would give us free server transfers?

so you could find the sever that suits PVE and WVW need? so that if you wanted to f a big WVW allience, but your PVE guild settled elsewhere, you wouldn’t have to choose between the two?

They have guesting, a feature advertised and probably forgotten by now, since free transfers are still around.

kKagari.6804:

kitanas.3596:

kKagari.6804:

kitanas.3596:

getting angry here are we?

If they had said that it would be 12-hour matches from the beginning, of course I would have accepted it. after all, that would have been what the devs said. that is not what they said. they said it would be a 2-week, persistant world vs world combat. that is what I expected, and that is what I got.

They also never said that WVW would be balanced. in fact, they stated the opposite. so your points about balance don’t really matter. this even applies to population balance. they put the matchmaking system in place solely to prevent complete washouts.

what makes a sever strong is it’s ability to organize. the most basic organizational skill for a server is getting people to show up where and when they are needed. this matters not only in a tactical sense, but a strategic sense also.

Sometimes just having the passion and vision for something to work doesn’t make it work. They WANTED server population balance. Why else would give us free server transfers?

so you could find the sever that suits PVE and WVW need? so that if you wanted to f a big WVW allience, but your PVE guild settled elsewhere, you wouldn’t have to choose between the two?

They have guesting, a feature advertised and probably forgotten by now, since free transfers are still around.

you got that backwards. free transfers were promised until they get guesting up. that’s why the free transfers are still around.

kitanas.3596:

kKagari.6804:

kitanas.3596:

kKagari.6804:

kitanas.3596:

getting angry here are we?

If they had said that it would be 12-hour matches from the beginning, of course I would have accepted it. after all, that would have been what the devs said. that is not what they said. they said it would be a 2-week, persistant world vs world combat. that is what I expected, and that is what I got.

They also never said that WVW would be balanced. in fact, they stated the opposite. so your points about balance don’t really matter. this even applies to population balance. they put the matchmaking system in place solely to prevent complete washouts.

what makes a sever strong is it’s ability to organize. the most basic organizational skill for a server is getting people to show up where and when they are needed. this matters not only in a tactical sense, but a strategic sense also.

Sometimes just having the passion and vision for something to work doesn’t make it work. They WANTED server population balance. Why else would give us free server transfers?

so you could find the sever that suits PVE and WVW need? so that if you wanted to f a big WVW allience, but your PVE guild settled elsewhere, you wouldn’t have to choose between the two?

They have guesting, a feature advertised and probably forgotten by now, since free transfers are still around.

you got that backwards. free transfers were promised until they get guesting up.

It still means PvE separation is not an issue. Besides, if your alliance and your PvE guild operated at different times, you can only play with one of them anyways, even if you are on the same server.

All I’m trying to say is, Arenanet has done nothing in facilitating server population balance. There is likely a lot of solo players who have chosen servers just based on their name and found out they will have no one to play with during the hours they are up.

Another suggestion would be to show server activity for 24hr periods so that guilds doing big moves can see if their active times can fill out empty times in another server.