Guild Wars 2

Greetings ANET,

It seems we have an issue with monitoring server populations, WvW participation, and server links based on my observations over the years and especially recently.

Questions: What is being done to monitor the following?

1) Server over-all population vs % WvW participation. Right now friends and guildmates who want to WvW on my server cannot transfer there even though our WvW participation is much lower than in the past. Yes, i realize there is a guesting system.

2) Does ANET in fact monitor timezone participation and attempt to balance around that with server links? IE, smaller servers with high concentration of players in Time Zone X combine with larger servers with much less player participation in that same timezone?

3) Does ANET use a WvW high participation server such as Blackgate as a benchmark for balancing competition from server to server? I’ve seen server transfers open to high participation WvW servers many times during the period that my server has been locked while those servers already high very high WvW participation than my server. This seems odd given the linking policy.

I fully realize it is not easy to prevent this from happening or detecting who is transferring where for WvW vs other reasons, but it’s clear that at least the server linking policy needs to change where WvW is concerned.

I found this highly frustrating, as I tried to transfer off my server with my guild, but Anet decided to lock servers early that week by about 2 hours.

So, I’m stuck on a now dead, t4 server, without my guild, and unable to move to another server unless i constantly swap every 8 weeks to a new server and use my gold/gems to stay in a competitive scene.

Customer service refused to assist.

Malpractice.7850:

I found this highly frustrating, as I tried to transfer off my server with my guild, but Anet decided to lock servers early that week by about 2 hours.

So, I’m stuck on a now dead, t4 server, without my guild, and unable to move to another server unless i constantly swap every 8 weeks to a new server and use my gold/gems to stay in a competitive scene.

Customer service refused to assist.

Wait…. there is no set time to lock or unlock servers… chance people take when they swap servers. Unless you move down. Now.. many servers are unlocked again. So you should be fine. Unless your server is BG…

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

1. World sizes are based on WvW play hours and players. People who do not play WvW, or are guests, do not factor into the population size of a server. If a world is locked, it is because it has a larger population than our “Full” threshold.

2. Yes and no. We look at timezone participation but timezone participation is hard to balance because people who play at certain times tend to all gravitate towards the same worlds so they can play with a lot of people. There are not enough off-hour worlds that we could link to create 24-hour coverage for every world. It just is not possible with our current world populations.

3. Yes, high population servers are usually the benchmark for when we link worlds. For example, if Blackgate has 10 players and it’s the highest populated server, then we try to link worlds so their populations are also around 10. We can’t be totally precise so sometimes worlds might end up with 12 or 9 but we try to get as close as possible.

Gnada.3016:

1) Server over-all population vs % WvW participation. Right now friends and guildmates who want to WvW on my server cannot transfer there even though our WvW participation is much lower than in the past. Yes, i realize there is a guesting system.

What guesting system?

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

1. World sizes are based on WvW play hours and players. People who do not play WvW, or are guests, do not factor into the population size of a server. If a world is locked, it is because it has a larger population than our “Full” threshold.

Your full threshold is far too low. Servers are full yet have populations too low to earn your shiny new WvW rewards at a rate similar to say those on BG. There is manifest inequality between servers and this impacts on progress towards rewards due to the way you’ve set them up. Linking as a way to mitigate this is a failure partially due to the wait between relinks which is far too long.

morrolan.9608:

Gnada.3016:

1) Server over-all population vs % WvW participation. Right now friends and guildmates who want to WvW on my server cannot transfer there even though our WvW participation is much lower than in the past. Yes, i realize there is a guesting system.

What guesting system?

A obsoleted system of the past during the days of non-megaserver. Players of different servers can do pve dungeons together but not open-world map. Guest system allow them to guest a particular server and enter their pve maps.

Now, with megaserver, this system is pointless though one can still use this system to increase the likelihood of entering a higher populated pve openworld instance.

Apparently my analysis on the server design is correct and likewise the issues, actually those designs and issues are common sense. Deleting and remaking worlds still the only way to go to balance servers but mehz, people want the gamemode to die instead.

morrolan.9608:

Your full threshold is far too low. Servers are full yet have populations too low to earn your shiny new WvW rewards at a rate similar to say those on BG. There is manifest inequality between servers and this impacts on progress towards rewards due to the way you’ve set them up. Linking as a way to mitigate this is a failure partially due to the wait between relinks which is far too long.

How does BG have an advantage to get the new Wvw gear? If anything, servers who can get the outnumbered buff have the advantage in that regard, otherwise it’s even.

SkyShroud.2865:

Apparently my analysis on the server design is correct and likewise the issues, actually those designs and issues are common sense. Deleting and remaking worlds still the only way to go to balance servers but mehz, people want the gamemode to die instead.

No. It is just they do not feel your solution is the one that will work. It’s not more complicated than that.

And honestly, there are 7 locked NA servers ATM. If your server is unlocked, recruiting now would be ideal.

Strider Pj.2193:

SkyShroud.2865:

Apparently my analysis on the server design is correct and likewise the issues, actually those designs and issues are common sense. Deleting and remaking worlds still the only way to go to balance servers but mehz, people want the gamemode to die instead.

No. It is just they do not feel your solution is the one that will work. It’s not more complicated than that.

Yet they unable to provide anything better or did they able to provide a constructive criticism why it would not work.

It is no different from just wanting the gamemode to die anyway.

SkyShroud.2865:

Strider Pj.2193:

SkyShroud.2865:

Apparently my analysis on the server design is correct and likewise the issues, actually those designs and issues are common sense. Deleting and remaking worlds still the only way to go to balance servers but mehz, people want the gamemode to die instead.

No. It is just they do not feel your solution is the one that will work. It’s not more complicated than that.

It is no different from just wanting the gamemode to die anyway.

But see? That is going on the assumption that your analysis is correct.

They don’t feel it is. It’s not personal.

SkyShroud.2865:

Deleting and remaking worlds still the only way to go to balance servers but mehz, people want the gamemode to die instead.

I disagree that it is the only way. The disparity between the calculated WvW population and the actual server population can also be remedied by the removal of accounts from a server if they haven’t counted towards the calculated WvW population after a certain time period, like two months maybe. If they wanted to play WvW again they’d have to pick a new, non-Full world to join (for free, of course). That would have been especially helpful before the June 6th patch brought a flood.

Yea, that’s what I wrote in my other thread. Make server non-mandatory and periodically purge accounts if they not wvwing. Problem is still that we don’t have enough off hours to spread out to 24 servers. Likewise, every server has different coverage which make balance via linking increasingly difficult and impossible to match. So, if we reduce the number of servers, we can consolidate the coverage into a fewer servers.

Right now this full threshold is just slowly draining everybody out, nothing but a slow death to everyone. Then for guilds that want to delay the slow death, they move off to a open server (using their hard earn cash) and only to continue to play under the coverage that impossible to solve with current servers. It is not fun.

Raymond Lukes.6305:

Deleting worlds and redistributing players is something that has been considered and discussed. In the way described it is not an option that we feel works to solve the complex issue of world population balance. There are many factors involved many that are not immediately obvious without the data we have access to.

You have to admit that everything you have done so far has been a disaster of epic proportions. Just look at BlackGate, are you honestly trying to tell us that bs was intended, or good for the game?

Choppy.4183:

morrolan.9608:

Your full threshold is far too low. Servers are full yet have populations too low to earn your shiny new WvW rewards at a rate similar to say those on BG. There is manifest inequality between servers and this impacts on progress towards rewards due to the way you’ve set them up. Linking as a way to mitigate this is a failure partially due to the wait between relinks which is far too long.

How does BG have an advantage to get the new Wvw gear? If anything, servers who can get the outnumbered buff have the advantage in that regard, otherwise it’s even.

They can run with the constant zerg and hit 1 and get the tickets, and there’s not many times when there is an outnumbered map.

world should be deleted for the reason that linking is a short term fix and should never be rely upon to keep dead world alive.

every season, a server should be deleted hunger game style, their player will get a free transfer to any server that isn’t full until the match up start getting fill, then a free server will be create for “adventurous guild” to transfer out of those full server so the population float within the desired range. anet need to encourage player to distribute and even out, not penalize them for doing so.

the thing is this, the current system penalize guild for transfering out, so there is a lack of incentive to balance the world. all anet is doing is to block more and more world from transferable which doesn’t fix the problem, it fact it make it worst since server can’t grow at all and there is even less incentive to move if changing server doesn’t fix anything since the link will still give them the same matchup.

SkyShroud.2865:

Apparently my analysis on the server design is correct and likewise the issues, actually those designs and issues are common sense. Deleting and remaking worlds still the only way to go to balance servers but mehz, people want the gamemode to die instead.

You don’t even have to delete servers.

Just make a new batch of servers to restart the pool of players for wvw only.
If a player wants to join wvw they join one of those servers while their old server still exist for pve purposes. They can control the incoming population with thresholds to the new servers and put in new rules for transfers.

They could even turn this back to their idea of wanting to make smaller servers in order to create better links, or hell have a set of 9 servers be the home servers, 3 servers set for off hours ocx/sea which will be in the same matchup always but linked with different servers, and the rest be mercenary servers, pretty much what links are now.

If a player goes inactive in wvw for like 2 months then have them drop from the wvw servers pool. There’s other options than straight out destroying through deletion.

XenesisII.1540:

If a player wants to join wvw they join one of those servers while their old server still exist for pve purposes.

pve no longer have server. it has been so for over 3 years… what you are suggesting is no different from deleting the server because that is just more data anet has to keep that serve no purpose.

XenesisII.1540:

They could even turn this back to their idea of wanting to make smaller servers in order to create better links,

this is ideally what we would like, but the reality is anet will likely just lower the server population and prevent people from transferring just to maintain the links. the link has become a bane because match up balance has to be done across links and not just the server itself. and we didn’t really solve anything, it will only be good for a few month, then we will hit the same problem again because the logarithm that balance server and link is still the same. unless anet changes the way they manage link and allow server to grow naturally it will have problem regardless of the number of server it has.

our problem now isn’t server count, it that more then half the server are mark as full when they are infact empty as kitten.

lagrangewei.8516:

XenesisII.1540:

If a player wants to join wvw they join one of those servers while their old server still exist for pve purposes.

pve no longer have server. it has been so for over 3 years… what you are suggesting is no different from deleting the server because that is just more data anet has to keep that serve no purpose.

You realize people still have to pick a server when they log in for the first time? You can play with anyone at anytime in pve, but you still need somewhere to park the account. Plus servers are still taken into account in which instances you zone into and surrounded by including guild mates, friends, server mates.

What I’m suggesting is having new servers solely for wvw to create the pool of players, that gives you options on how to populate it and control the populations on them. That includes being able to drop players out of the wvw server back to their home server so you can free up space when they become inactive. This can be done without any real servers to hold those accounts, just an area to pool players, kinda like how eotm holds players to blue red green sides for a week.

XenesisII.1540:

You realize people still have to pick a server when they log in for the first time?

so how does your solution solve anything when player will still pick server? your is a short term fix that only lead to the same problem down the road, as new player select the “new” wvw server and then don’t wvw. it doesn’t change anything!

and if you really want to park player, just create a fake handler like “NOSERVER” and automatically assign everyone and all the new account to that and if they click on wvw icon, they will be required to select a server. you don’t need to add new server, in fact adding new server for this purpose only increase the problem.

You’re right hunger games style so much better, carry on.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

We look at timezone participation but timezone participation is hard to balance because people who play at certain times tend to all gravitate towards the same worlds so they can play with a lot of people. There are not enough off-hour worlds that we could link to create 24-hour coverage for every world. It just is not possible with our current world populations.

Which shows the fundamental deficiencies of a world based system, that the units you can try and balance with (worlds) are far too large, inflexible and unwieldy to get anything evenly vaguely balanced.

And that is without even going into that 5 mins after a new link up is announced you get entire guilds switching server, then in the next couple of weeks hundreds of players following, making the notion of considered balance over what worlds to link, utterly laughable.

Or how silly it is for the mass PvP part of the game to still be based on ‘worlds’ when in the rest of the game (PvE/PvP) ‘worlds’ have basically become an irrelevance.

But I guess that overhaul to actually really address one of the big issues with WvW since day 1 required too many resources, so the papering over the cracks option was the Anet choice as usual.

XenesisII.1540:

lagrangewei.8516:

XenesisII.1540:

If a player wants to join wvw they join one of those servers while their old server still exist for pve purposes.

pve no longer have server. it has been so for over 3 years… what you are suggesting is no different from deleting the server because that is just more data anet has to keep that serve no purpose.

You realize people still have to pick a server when they log in for the first time? You can play with anyone at anytime in pve, but you still need somewhere to park the account. Plus servers are still taken into account in which instances you zone into and surrounded by including guild mates, friends, server mates.

What I’m suggesting is having new servers solely for wvw to create the pool of players, that gives you options on how to populate it and control the populations on them. That includes being able to drop players out of the wvw server back to their home server so you can free up space when they become inactive. This can be done without any real servers to hold those accounts, just an area to pool players, kinda like how eotm holds players to blue red green sides for a week.

Might as well make server non-mandatory, why make things complicated?

Strider Pj.2193:

And honestly, there are 7 locked NA servers ATM. If your server is unlocked, recruiting now would be ideal.

4 out of 7 of those servers are linked to offset population loss in WVW. The other 3 are not. My server lost many players when BG was open for a bit and hasn’t been opened or link to offset that. We can recruit all we want but no one can transfer and no one wants to WVW anymore because of the way WVW is set up. It’s so sad to see because we were one of the top WVW servers.

morrolan.9608:

They can run with the constant zerg and hit 1 and get the tickets, and there’s not many times when there is an outnumbered map.

Zergs don’t get pips faster than anyone else. Badges of honor, karma, loot, sure, but not pips and tickets.

I roam exclusively, and I’m getting pips at the same rate as my allies in zergs after taking a couple if camps, sentries, and people.

SnowPumpkin.1809:

Strider Pj.2193:

And honestly, there are 7 locked NA servers ATM. If your server is unlocked, recruiting now would be ideal.

4 out of 7 of those servers are linked to offset population loss in WVW. The other 3 are not. My server lost many players when BG was open for a bit and hasn’t been opened or link to offset that. We can recruit all we want but no one can transfer and no one wants to WVW anymore because of the way WVW is set up. It’s so sad to see because we were one of the top WVW servers.

So, is your server open?

If it’s Mag, make has issues independent of population. It has one of the larger populations of people currently hibernating because there are no ‘fights’. Plus they, as a whole, state they don’t PPT. BG isn’t the fault of that currently. They haven’t been in Tier 1 for four weeks.

Mag didn’t want BG. And honestly no one wants in tier one right now.

People here pushed for one up, one down. So, in T1, it is a race to third place.

But the other servers that are now open? Are they recruiting guilds? People forget that is how BG operates. They encourage guilds to come when opened. And yes, that encouragement might include gold…

I wonder if the servers that are now open, are encouraging guilds to come?

morrolan.9608:

Choppy.4183:

morrolan.9608:

Your full threshold is far too low. Servers are full yet have populations too low to earn your shiny new WvW rewards at a rate similar to say those on BG. There is manifest inequality between servers and this impacts on progress towards rewards due to the way you’ve set them up. Linking as a way to mitigate this is a failure partially due to the wait between relinks which is far too long.

How does BG have an advantage to get the new Wvw gear? If anything, servers who can get the outnumbered buff have the advantage in that regard, otherwise it’s even.

They can run with the constant zerg and hit 1 and get the tickets, and there’s not many times when there is an outnumbered map.

But their Zerg is so big that they can just spam one? And you are not outnumbered thus giving you more pips per tick?

Population deficits have caused problems, but Pips isn’t one of them.

Strider Pj.2193:

SnowPumpkin.1809:

Strider Pj.2193:

And honestly, there are 7 locked NA servers ATM. If your server is unlocked, recruiting now would be ideal.

4 out of 7 of those servers are linked to offset population loss in WVW. The other 3 are not. My server lost many players when BG was open for a bit and hasn’t been opened or link to offset that. We can recruit all we want but no one can transfer and no one wants to WVW anymore because of the way WVW is set up. It’s so sad to see because we were one of the top WVW servers.

So, is your server open?

If it’s Mag, make has issues independent of population. It has one of the larger populations of people currently hibernating because there are no ‘fights’. Plus they, as a whole, state they don’t PPT. BG isn’t the fault of that currently. They haven’t been in Tier 1 for four weeks.

Mag didn’t want BG. And honestly no one wants in tier one right now.

People here pushed for one up, one down. So, in T1, it is a race to third place.

But the other servers that are now open? Are they recruiting guilds? People forget that is how BG operates. They encourage guilds to come when opened. And yes, that encouragement might include gold…

I wonder if the servers that are now open, are encouraging guilds to come?

Yes I am on Mag and we haven’t been open for awhile. BG was open not long ago and we lost players. I just think most of us don’t see the point. Were up against linked servers, or servers that have recentlly been opened to transfer. We never have enough people in WVW now. We didn’t want to be T1… who does? I agree. That means fighting BG who always seems to have a higher WVW population than anyone. The only way we had any chance against them was when we had a link and then that was taken away and we have been locked for awhile.

SnowPumpkin.1809:

Strider Pj.2193:

SnowPumpkin.1809:

Strider Pj.2193:

And honestly, there are 7 locked NA servers ATM. If your server is unlocked, recruiting now would be ideal.

4 out of 7 of those servers are linked to offset population loss in WVW. The other 3 are not. My server lost many players when BG was open for a bit and hasn’t been opened or link to offset that. We can recruit all we want but no one can transfer and no one wants to WVW anymore because of the way WVW is set up. It’s so sad to see because we were one of the top WVW servers.

So, is your server open?

If it’s Mag, make has issues independent of population. It has one of the larger populations of people currently hibernating because there are no ‘fights’. Plus they, as a whole, state they don’t PPT. BG isn’t the fault of that currently. They haven’t been in Tier 1 for four weeks.

Mag didn’t want BG. And honestly no one wants in tier one right now.

People here pushed for one up, one down. So, in T1, it is a race to third place.

But the other servers that are now open? Are they recruiting guilds? People forget that is how BG operates. They encourage guilds to come when opened. And yes, that encouragement might include gold…

I wonder if the servers that are now open, are encouraging guilds to come?

Yes I am on Mag and we haven’t been open for awhile. BG was open not long ago and we lost players. I just think most of us don’t see the point. Were up against linked servers, or servers that have recentlly been opened to transfer. We never have enough people in WVW now. We didn’t want to be T1… who does? I agree. That means fighting BG who always seems to have a higher WVW population than anyone. The only way we had any chance against them was when we had a link and then that was taken away and we have been locked for awhile.

I can understand that.

I can’t understand why servers that ARE open, aren’t recruiting players.

BG will bleed players off it. They likely will remain locked for some time. And no, they likely shouldn’t have been opened the last time.

That still doesn’t explain why Mag is struggling vs their current tier other than hibernating or staying true to themselves about PPT.

Because we can’t really do anything, we get blobbed by linked and recently opened servers. We have lost players and haven’t been given the chance to bring in new players or guilds. I guess a lot of us are just doing other things until it’s sorted out. I’ve personally been doing map comp. I see others I normally WVW with doing the same and in the new map. It sucks because I had friends on Mag that encouraged me to join saying it was such a great WVW server, and I loved it initially and spent all that money to switch my BF and myself. We were on JQ who at that time wasn’t WVW as much so made the change and that was a mistake. Now they have a huge player base and were struggling. I won’t switch again because it seems to happen to all servers at one time or another.

Ermm…
For me, it is about the long term well-being of WvW.

Numerous server full doesn’t means is a good thing, it all depends on the actual designs of the game. As for now, I am sure many already know that server full doesn’t equal in populations between each other. This in reality can and will become demoralizing factor for servers that have lesser populations which in turn can and will reduce the overall wvw population when people rage quit due to imbalance. This is in fact not good for the wvw overall if we continue to lose players over this.

I continue to believe blowing all up and implement well thoughts rules is still the way to go. I fail to see how one can hope to solve imbalance issue with 24 servers that varies in base populations, wvw populations and coverage accompanied by players’ behaviors and real life complications.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

1. World sizes are based on WvW play hours and players. People who do not play WvW, or are guests, do not factor into the population size of a server. If a world is locked, it is because it has a larger population than our “Full” threshold.

2. Yes and no. We look at timezone participation but timezone participation is hard to balance because people who play at certain times tend to all gravitate towards the same worlds so they can play with a lot of people. There are not enough off-hour worlds that we could link to create 24-hour coverage for every world. It just is not possible with our current world populations.

3. Yes, high population servers are usually the benchmark for when we link worlds. For example, if Blackgate has 10 players and it’s the highest populated server, then we try to link worlds so their populations are also around 10. We can’t be totally precise so sometimes worlds might end up with 12 or 9 but we try to get as close as possible.

In the current NA T1 matchup, BG has never finished out of first. Last week was similar.

Does your population calculation, with linking considered, predict this to be an even match?

Do you take map population snapshots of matches to verify that your population algorithm is valid?

Could there be a bug where how you leave WvW affects the algorithm? Logging out in WvW vs. exiting to Lion’s Arch vs. going to EotM.

Bit off topic but how about it if you control the timeframe in which transfers are applied? Say…for example, I can transfer anytime in the week I want. However, that transfer will not apply until the next mu reset. This gives you ample time to observe patterns and trends on server hopping and react accordingly. It also prevents instant balooning of servers in the middle of the mu just because they have links and have space.

PS: Please tell your balance team to get conditions in line already. Just yesterday i was absorbing almost 50 stacks of torment using pain absorption. It’s not fun. Game’s almost half a decade year old now and this problem still persists.

Strider Pj.2193:

But their Zerg is so big that they can just spam one? And you are not outnumbered thus giving you more pips per tick?

Population deficits have caused problems, but Pips isn’t one of them.

Sorry, I don’t follow. The claim is that BG has an unfair advantage to get the new wvw gear. That gear is gated by tickets, which are acquired by pips. Pips flow at the same rate provided you reach a pretty low activity threshold, with zerging adding nothing to flow of pups (and tickets).

If BG is truly so much bigger than its opponents, then, if anything, the opponents will get an advantage through the outnumbered buff, even if rarely.

Either way, I see no advantage to BG on this front. Considering you can roll around and kill sentries and take to get the pips flowing, being able to mash 1 in a blob isn’t any kind if advantage.

There is no guarantee what so ever that eliminating and recreating the WvW servers will produce an even distribution. Too many players and guilds want to play in the upper tiers and eventually they will end up there and you will see a similar outcome; top heavy population distribution.

If population balancing across all WvW tiers is the goal, then there needs to be an incentive for people to transfer AWAY from the T1 servers. I see two possible means of achieving this.

1. Make the T1 experience more difficult. If you make it more difficult to access WvW (smaller map population caps and thus longer ques) or more difficult for zergs to function (reduce max squad size) the disgruntled players could seek greener pastures. This method is fundamentally problematic as it is predicated on a negative in-game experience and is just as likely to drive people away from the game entirely. THEREFORE: making the game suck more just to get people to move servers is a bad idea.

2. Incentives for playing on non population locked servers. Giving your player base a reward for doing something that is healthy for the game itself could be a win-win, the trick is finding a strong enough incentive to motivate people to actually transfer without making that reward absurdly high. Not only that, but incentivize the players that AREN’T transferring to the top tier servers so they have a reason to stay and help build a community in the other tiers. Possible incentives would be bonus pips, bonus reward track progress, bonus WvW XP.

Until people have a legitimate reason to leave a top tier server, they won’t.

you cant just delete and remake servers, you would have to put a system in place that forces equal populations. that would mean a lot of people getting the short end of the stick.

Choppy.4183:

Strider Pj.2193:

But their Zerg is so big that they can just spam one? And you are not outnumbered thus giving you more pips per tick?

Population deficits have caused problems, but Pips isn’t one of them.

Sorry, I don’t follow. The claim is that BG has an unfair advantage to get the new wvw gear. That gear is gated by tickets, which are acquired by pips. Pips flow at the same rate provided you reach a pretty low activity threshold, with zerging adding nothing to flow of pups (and tickets).

If BG is truly so much bigger than its opponents, then, if anything, the opponents will get an advantage through the outnumbered buff, even if rarely.

Either way, I see no advantage to BG on this front. Considering you can roll around and kill sentries and take to get the pips flowing, being able to mash 1 in a blob isn’t any kind if advantage.

My argument was the same. BG is not granted an advantage in Pips nor rewards.

The servers facing BG, (if BG truly is so big that it only has to spam ‘1’ as was the poster’s premie) then they would be receiving the outnumbered buff thus allowing them to put gain BG players in Pips.

@dealdrick: agreed on the incentive part. Give a reason for a ‘choice, don’t force people to do something they don’t want to do.

Strider Pj.2193:

BG will bleed players off it.

They don’t really though. This is just a wishful sentiment. The WvW playerbase that transfers servers the most is “organizers”. BG opening last was basically the result of FOUR GUILDS moving off that server. A large number pugs and PvE fairweathers remained because they don’t really have any reason to transfer. Once BG opened it regained organizers and then the patch brought some other organizers back to the game mode who were already on BG but not counting towards the WvW population.

This is why some veteran players make calls for WvW teams to be organized around guilds.

Raymond Lukes.6305:

Deleting worlds and redistributing players is something that has been considered and discussed. In the way described it is not an option that we feel works to solve the complex issue of world population balance. There are many factors involved many that are not immediately obvious without the data we have access to.

The amount of worlds is working well but the divide currently applied to the EU servers brings forth problems we never dared to anticipate. Whereas servers with normal population are left alone in the dark, Larger and more crowded servers are paired with 3 full servers to participate in 1 match against the lone servers. where the lone servers only experience very fast and small queues on 1 or 2 borders. the merged servers tend to have huge, long queues on all maps cause of the influx of people during prime time. Maybe to create a fair playfield for all servers maybe the population should be based on the combined power of the merged servers and give the lone servers a time to grow.

Strider Pj.2193:

(if BG truly is so big that it only has to spam ‘1’ as was the poster’s premie) then they would be receiving the outnumbered buff thus allowing them to put gain BG players in Pips.

You’re right! BG truly is that big. We were getting outnumbered buff quite often even on reset night. Helps a lot with pips.

Chaba.5410:

Strider Pj.2193:

(if BG truly is so big that it only has to spam ‘1’ as was the poster’s premie) then they would be receiving the outnumbered buff thus allowing them to put gain BG players in Pips.

You’re right! BG truly is that big. We were getting outnumbered buff quite often even on reset night. Helps a lot with pips.

Daily reminder that BG fully supports QQ/FOO in the sniping, exploiting, doxxing, and all the other kitten. Oh, and Bill Clinton is a kitten . www.infowars.com

yes everyone knows that snipegate is real. on many occasions they rely on it to win.

Choppy.4183:

morrolan.9608:

They can run with the constant zerg and hit 1 and get the tickets, and there’s not many times when there is an outnumbered map.

Zergs don’t get pips faster than anyone else. Badges of honor, karma, loot, sure, but not pips and tickets.

You do if you’re consistently coming 1st and it takes much less effort to maintain your participation in a zerg. Hence why anet yet against fails to break up zerging and indeed makes it worse because they fundamentally don’t understand the mode.

Strider Pj.2193:

But their Zerg is so big that they can just spam one? And you are not outnumbered thus giving you more pips per tick?

Population deficits have caused problems, but Pips isn’t one of them.

Outnumbered also depends on the 3rd server, thus it is not consistent even facing BG.

morrolan.9608:

You do if you’re consistently coming 1st and it takes much less effort to maintain your participation in a zerg. Hence why anet yet against fails to break up zerging and indeed makes it worse because they fundamentally don’t understand the mode.

When maintaining participation as a roamer is dead easy (even if you’re just killing npcs), there’s no advantage in a zerg.

Again, there’s a clear advantage for general loot, but not for pips, tickets, and the new wvw gear.

morrolan.9608:

Choppy.4183:

morrolan.9608:

They can run with the constant zerg and hit 1 and get the tickets, and there’s not many times when there is an outnumbered map.

Zergs don’t get pips faster than anyone else. Badges of honor, karma, loot, sure, but not pips and tickets.

You do if you’re consistently coming 1st and it takes much less effort to maintain your participation in a zerg. Hence why anet yet against fails to break up zerging and indeed makes it worse because they fundamentally don’t understand the mode.

Strider Pj.2193:

But their Zerg is so big that they can just spam one? And you are not outnumbered thus giving you more pips per tick?

Population deficits have caused problems, but Pips isn’t one of them.

Outnumbered also depends on the 3rd server, thus it is not consistent even facing BG.

If BG outnumbers the map, both servers will get it.

Sorry, but I don’t think you are nearly as outnumbered as you think you are.