Guild Wars 2

if you transfer servers few times you are not qualified to talk about server loyalty…..

The only thing I am caught up on is this. How can someone speak so highly of loyalty be so disloyal and switch servers twice =/

Warcry.1596:

The only thing I am caught up on is this. How can someone speak so highly of loyalty be so disloyal and switch servers twice =/

Three times

Some time ago before eotm came about I posted my thoughts on how to stabilize and maintain server population with a game that is losing numbers. I do not want to go on about server loyalty b/c it would make me a hypocrite. I started on SFR, moved to JQ, then to mag, TC, IOJ, and back to MAG. Took me a while to find where I fit in the most and realized Mag was it. I love the guys and gals on Mag and when we are trolling the kitten out of each other we do what we do best and that is bag the hell out of opposing servers. Anyways my thoughts on how to fix the servers without going to extremes and making it eotm style forever.

1. Shut down the bottom 4 lowest pop servers on both EU and NA sides.
2. Shut down the top 6 highest pop servers for recruiting (for a period of around 3-6 months.)
3. Offer those leaving a bottom 4 pop server a free transfer to any server besides the top 6. Yes, I understand some might not want to go but the loyal guys to the game will easily go to another server to play.
4. Make eotm up levels only. Anyone ranked 80 loses access to this game mode.
5. Re-work the server system. Round robin style instead of tiers and hold playoffs for tournaments.
6. Not sure if this is possible at all but, give the EU and NA servers a chance to play one another. (if possible)
7. If say the servers start to become to full again as far as optimal population. You open 1 server for both EU and NA timezones.

Like I said this is just my opinion on the matter.

Chaba.5410:

Mega-servers only consolidate the population

This would already a big achievement, wouldn’kitten

Chaba.5410:

but WvW will still be plagued by the same stale scoring and reward issues that lead to population decline in the first place. They do nothing to incentivize guilds to perform a long siege (not saying there should be long sieges only that we’re forced into it sometimes), incentivizing non-PPTers to start PPTing, etc. Everyone jokes about how mega-server will make anonymous ktrains like EOTM. Alliances will remove the anonymity yet still guilds go to EOTM for fights and not to do a long siege or PPT. I can’t see that changing with just improved population. See the flaws now?

I see the flaws, 2 years ago I believed that a better scoring would have likely avoided several of the current problems. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Nerf-the-domination-of-Coverage/3462968

If the new population balance function (improved as proposed in https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Comments-on-new-WvW-Population/5549029) would have been added between EotM-release and season 2 announcement all the imbalanced introduced or cemented at that time would have been avoided.

But now we also have a third problem, namely that of multiple occasion- and unlimited F2P-accounts per player.
Be happy that currently nearly none takes scoring and competition seriously and that there are no rewards enforcing that.

A reward-supported competition between servers would end in a disaster currently:

• the new population-balance likely still allows overstacking as it likely do not apply transfers immediately to population. We would just get a new transfer to win with increased imbalances again.
• WvW would be full of spies and saboteurs (multiple occasion- and F2P-accounts), which at least report commander positions and consume map-capacity. (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Alt-Abuse-in-BL)

And this problem can only be tackled by replacing the open to anyone server, by closed guild-like alliances, where you can kick people with such behavior.

If we have alliance, we must not have a fixed amount, but people must be able to found new and dismiss old ones.

As soon as we have an variable amount of alliances we need grouping of alliances and demand driven map-capacity.

Then we should get also better scoring and better rewards and it could be fun again to play WvW as competitive game-mode.

@WvW Community

Players just want to have fun.

It’s the Broken Base Map Mechanic that forces players to abandon their Team in favor of being able to fight.

ANet needs to fix this Broken Base Map Mechanic.

It’s really a simple fix.

Get rid of the Current Tier Based system & replace it with a Globe based system…imho.

Once the Base Map Mechanic is fixed…Server Loyalty & Passion can be used to fuel the battles that will rage across all Worlds/Globes.

Diku

Players in Tier 1-3 that say WvW is full…please understand that everybody is migrating to your World because it’s not fun in the lower Tiers…imho.

Server Pride creates a Strong Sense of Community which is the backbone behind many Good & Hard Fought Rivalries imho.

A really exciting season between staunch or bitter Rivals…that’s what I believe needs to fuel WvW.

Any system that automatically manipulates match-ups on behalf of the players will do this poorly in my opinion.

SilentKill.9586:

4. Make eotm up levels only. Anyone ranked 80 loses access to this game mode.

Why?? Alot of players such as myself enjoy EoTM. Sounds like this forces players somewhere they dont want to be. Since HOT and the huge influx of players to EoTM, it has been so much fun. Dont take this away!

Jayne.9251:

Take away that, and you’ll see WvW turn into a giant pve ktrain. Which will empty the next time a big update/shiny is announced.

On low-pop/low-tier servers with these huge maps, we’re already there…PVE k-trains, because we hardly see an enemy to attack most of the time, or they are all the way across the map or moved to different maps by the time we get there.

displayname.8315:

Swagger.1459:

Who said anything about grinding maps or gold?….

Rewards mean a lot of things…. Are you anti-reward structure?

So if there were, for example, ways to earn ascended armor and weapons with badges of honor would you complain?

Maybe the devs are going to make ascended runes and sigils for earned rewards.

Maybe the devs will make a set of special legendary armor for wvw players…

It’s called incentivized gameplay… Most players want rewards. You want more peeps in wvw? Give out better rewards…

Sigh…

First off not sure why your trying to make this thread about loot, its about wanting dynamic servers.

Second if you want the mats to make ascended, WvW gives those just fine. Just open the heavy loot bags from player kills. Or the exotic loot bags from champ kills. Or salvage the gear dropped by everything else. Myself I just put it all on the vendor now that I’m equipped, not like it took long.

WvW only legendary gear?? You used to have to WvW a little to get legendary, they removed that because of player complaints. I don’t like that there is fractal only loot but whatever. Its not going to be a good thing changing rewards. You see how well mist skins and tornament tickets went over with loot hounds.

Not true at all. They introduced a new grouping of ascended gear(power creep), which is in no way, shape, or form achievable in WvW. Also mist skins, etc were only earned during a very limited time frame, and thus resulted in many problems. If they would restructure rewards to awards based on participation and activity rather than simply overwhelming numbers you wouldn’t see as much disruption.

SilentKill.9586:

1. Shut down the bottom 4 lowest pop servers on both EU and NA sides.
2. Shut down the top 6 highest pop servers for recruiting (for a period of around 3-6 months.)
3. Offer those leaving a bottom 4 pop server a free transfer to any server besides the top 6. Yes, I understand some might not want to go but the loyal guys to the game will easily go to another server to play.
4. Make eotm up levels only. Anyone ranked 80 loses access to this game mode.
5. Re-work the server system. Round robin style instead of tiers and hold playoffs for tournaments.
6. Not sure if this is possible at all but, give the EU and NA servers a chance to play one another. (if possible)
7. If say the servers start to become to full again as far as optimal population. You open 1 server for both EU and NA timezones.

Like I said this is just my opinion on the matter.

If you want to fold wvw servers you need to do it in 3’s.

While I also agree they should have offered some sort of free transfers off the last 3-6 servers into the mid pack of servers then closed them, that in itself will cause another imbalance if it’s not handled properly which I wouldn’t expect it to be, much like we saw with HoD before tournament.

Free transfers should have also been offered off the top servers when they were full, down to the lower servers. WoW does this all the time offering free transfers to help over/underpopulated servers. Anet did not care to monitor the wvw population, it took them 3 years to even switch to that at the server listing.

Taking out Eotm at level 80 will take out the original purpose of it in the first place, a place to play while you’re stuck in queue. A lot more of that will happen if you stack the servers up again from transfers. I do understand the thinking in trying to force more level 80’s to play real wvw than eotm, there has to be a better way to do it, like offer better rewards for playing wvw over eotm, and leave eotm as a leveling area.

If populations happen to miraculously even out then we can talk round robin. Population imbalance is one of the reasons along with night capping, why they haven’t bothered with another tournament (also that they don’t care to anyways). In the end populations will never be close to “Even” but there should be efforts to try at least.

WvW should have been global from the start, maybe the night capping time zone population issues wouldn’t have been so bad at this point.

DeceiverX.8361:

Kaiser.9873:

Okay so merge the low end servers. Then all is good again, no? Bottom line is we have way too many servers for the number of players we have.

This isn’t a sustainable model and reflects poorly on the health of the game to stockholders/investors and to potential prospective players.

WvW is in the state it is in for a variety of reasons. Those reasons will continue to perpetuate until a lot of core issues are resolved, many of which are an extension of the current server vs server model through population stacking and time-zone imbalances.

Alrighty then. Instead of merging/closing servers, let’s do something to make the “Big WvW Overhaul” a real deal. Make 9 new NA worlds. These worlds are only for WvW purposes. You want to PvE you can continue to PvE on YB/JQ/BG/FA/SoS/whatever server you belong to, but when you go to WvW you go to an assigned WvW world.

No picking and choosing worlds to get the best matchup that week like “alliances” would promote. Each world has X number of slots per timezone based on some (hopefully) equitable formula that makes all worlds have similar timezone numbers to each other. Current servers are divided up into these worlds based on activity, and that’s your WarWorld.

Best of the megaserver idea, but still retains “server loyalty” to an extent. Everyone’s assigned a world so it’s not really different than what we have now except there are more players. Pretty quickly people will learn their new “world-mates” tendencies and personalities. Shared TS is still a very real thing since many of the guilds will be seeing familiar faces.

This wouldn’t be closing servers, but could be sold as a very positive new feature of the game.

atheria.2837:

KKaelyn.5904:

This one hundred percent!

Thank you.

the thing is, if there was a solid choice of factions to join, megaserver would work. join a faction, show up in that factions base, where friendlies are from server x y z and pi. however, that doesn’t exist and never will.
not to mention that the true audience being catered to is the pve crowd. and the funny thing is, in a game called GUILD WARS, wvw is not the golden egg for some reason. (yes i know why the game is called guild wars. that doesn’t mean there can’t be guild wars.)

PopeUrban.2578:

That’s all well and good for the chosen few that sit in the upper echelons of the leaderboard. What about the rest of us?

The changes to the system would be fairly simple:

• “server” becomes “team” During the week, in the wvw panel, you can either choose to be assigned a random team (default) a preferred team (select by name) or a guild you are a member of to control where you end up each matchup.

• No mid-match swapping Swapping works exactly like guild missions. You can say “I prefer to be on YB” but you won’t move to YB until the next reset.

• Formal guild alliance functionality/guild team selection This is specifically for guild officers. Guilds in an alliance will automatically have their guild’s team set to match the alliance leading guild’s team. Guilds can also choose a team (similar interface to personal selection) This functionality allows pve guilds to remain hands off, and allows players in multiple guilds to choose which guild they want to wvw with. The guild chooses its alliance and preferred team, but players choose which guild they want to follow, or choose their team individually

• Teams are balanced every reset automatically. You will always end up with your guild/alliance, but at reset the game will balance population based on people who already have a preference set, and fill out the remainder with people with no preference. This means that while your alliance is set to ‘Tarnished Coast’ and all members/guilds are set to follow the alliance lead, if another equally large alliance is also set to ‘Tarnished Coast’ The system will attempt to population balance per match based upon guild/alliance members with logins in the last week, and after that fill population from players set to random. This shifts the focus of communities from server to guild/alliance, and ensures that if any one community grows too large the system will attempt to balance population against it so that matches remain competitive and fun.

• Incentivize being filler to further equalize pops. Individuals can choose to be assigned at random, rather than alongside a guild or alliance. Being randomly assigned means there is no guarantee you’ll play alongside any of your friends or guildmates, but it will grant you bonus WXP for the duration of the match. This is the default option, and exists primarily so that the system has a way to separate organized groups of players and soloists, and ensure that people who don’t actually normally play WvW aren’t skewing population numbers. The WXP bonus is there specifically to entice new players and soloists to choose this option, while experienced and organized groups can easily see the larger benefits of retaining their communitites.

• Total number of teams is dynamically adjusted each match. Simply put, wvw matches will track concurrent players. if five matches with 3 teams each take place this week, and we can see that to average number of players in two of those matches were down to ten a day, the system knows there are too many teams. Thus, next reset, in stead of five matches, it’ll drop three teams and there will be 4 matches. If it seems regular servers ending up in heavy ques all week, it’ll create more matches. This means communities will continue to play together, but the system is dynamically adjusting to ensure each reset there are an optimal number of teams and matches for players actually playing wvw, preventing both heavy ques and dead matchups.

• Server Leaderboards become Alliance and Guild Leaderboards Using the same setup as the guild challenger league leaderboard, with a similar ranking system, but fixing the obvious problem exploit the challenger leaderboard has right now of generating infinity new teams. This setup encourages guilds and alliances to win matches consistantly, and, with the proposed population balancing measures, better reflects skill and organization than how much server stacking someone did. A seasonal system could be built around this with unique rewards, skins, guild hall trophies, etc.

Pope Urban, I’ve disagreed with you on numerous occasions, but your suggestions here are BRILLIANT. +1Million!

Aww shucks. Thanks

Want to go to LA and rally the troops without letting everyone else know? Simple solution…

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