Guild Wars 2

I am under the impression that the current population state for a server take into account only WvW. If that is the case, something must be messed up in the calculations. If this change has not gone into effect, let me know.

In T2, TC is Full. SoS is High. FA is Very High. Having seen two sides of this match I can say that SoS often has more players than FA or at the very least is on par with FA. I do play across all time zones so it isn’t a timezone thing. How does one server get a High rating while the other server gets a Very High?

Then we have the opposite problem at the other end of the spectrum. No server is ranked Low population yet we know some of the servers go hours without a significant population.

Hopefully the WvW population change isn’t in full effect yet. If it is, might be time to revise how a server counts its WvW population.

They are “tweaking” it based on results supposedly… AND it’s not supposed to be immediate, the population metrics are averaged over some time period, probably at least a month, so if a bunch of guilds left FA in the last couple weeks, it may not show up in the population level yet, but ultimately it will.
Personally I am quite happy with the results so far, lots of guilds have moved down to lower pop servers which is a great thing, not nearly balanced yet, but certainly more dynamic than it was before.

It is a slow “moving average” of total WVW activity. It may take 2-3 weeks to take inot account.

That said, for you specifically I noticed changes on FA recently as follows:

1. Since SOS is picking up steam and often runs at least half map blob in EB, they often defeat the full FA map blobs, leading the FA fairwaethers to quit or go do something else.

Remember, up until very recently SOS has been officially outnumbered (with the buff) vast majority of teh time and double map blobbed by FA + either YB or TC. So we’re used to fighting in those conditions. Now, as we are picking up people, we don’t even need a full map blob of our own to deal with one, though its nice when we actually have one, really nice for a change.

2. While FAs fairweathers on NA prime time timezone are diminishing, the server actually is picking up steam on other timezones and has increased activity making up for the NA prime time loss.

So if you play on FA NA prime time, then yes, it may seem like your server has less WVW players, but it actually has improved overall in the other timezones.

Hopefully A-Nets further improvements to these situations will come soon after HOT release, rather then get put on the back burner.

Having been on both sides SoS is every bit as populated as FA and none of the lower tier servers have seen anything below Medium at least in the US when I have checked. Not sure when this patch went in but I would expect to see some movement in the last month.

As for the tier politics, TC generally flattens whichever side can generate the most PPT with the least resistance. For the last few days that has been FA but it could be SoS tomorrow. Best I can tell most of FA could give two craps about PPT. The concept that SoS is a superior fighting server that can hold its own with half the numbers is silly. 99% of the time blob size determines PPT with the only exception I know of being the Mag GvG days. As for SoS being ganged up on, look at the map. It looks like a red/green Christmas decoration for the last couple days.

The population calculation uses a rolling average and it won’t catch up with all the transfers since transfers are not immediately removed/added to the average. It seems like it will take like 3-4 weeks before the transfers into SoS show up in the rolling average. So unfortunately it is very easy to stack still.

Another thing to consider is, when are you playing Straegen? Because some days FA is stronger than SoS in a timeslot and some days not and that’s due to guild raid schedules.

Straegen.2938:

As for SoS being ganged up on, look at the map. It looks like a red/green Christmas decoration for the last couple days.

Sometimes it takes players hindsight to see some change.

There are no real calculations, plain and simple, which is why you could put two servers together in certain tiers and their populations combined would still not equal the most dominant server in that tier. Yet, they have the same population status.

They did a lowest cost easiest coded scenario and just put servers into calculations based on a printout of the numbers seen in WvW over a months time, at the time of the printout, without regards to any other parameters. I’d actually even be amazed if they did this and didn’t just create an initial printout and then stick people in population levels arbitrarily.

I bet that they just try to make bandwagoners change servers as much as possible.

The entire system no matter how it is done currently simply isn’t working. The transfer system should entice players/guilds to even out the population levels in stagnant tiers.

I suggest allowing X number of free or very low cost transfers to stagnant servers in tiers that need more balance. Mark a server such as CD or HoD as low until it gets a 100 or so transfers.

Straegen.2938:

Mark a server such as CD or HoD as low until it gets a 100 or so transfers.

The problem I see with that is unless they are keeping track of which accounts are counted towards “WvW activity”, they have no way of knowing if a transfer is an active WvW player. We don’t know if individual accounts are tracked in that manner.

Chaba.5410:

The problem I see with that is unless they are keeping track of which accounts are counted towards “WvW activity”, they have no way of knowing if a transfer is an active WvW player. We don’t know if individual accounts are tracked in that manner.

It is pure speculation since none of us are privy to their code or internal design but I would think they can track average time spent in WvW per player. If not, it doesn’t seem on the surface something difficult to implement.

Something else to keep in mind are spy accounts. Do we know if the data only counts accounts actively attacking enemy and defending against enemy AS active or can a spy account just sit in Citadel and be counted as active?