Guild Wars 2

Simple and straight: Devs, play for AR so you can see the dire situation imbalance is right now, to be able to put in 10 ppl top in our own BL. Right now we don’t need a long term solution, we need a short term hard first aid, so at least we can still have some “fun”. I’m sure AR isn’t the only server in this situation right now.

it’s not, and I think they’re already aware of the problem.

but what can they do about it? what can they do to get more players to play, and to encourage them to play on low population servers instead of stacking on T1 servers?

as long as you allow players to choose where to play, they will naturally play on the higher population servers. and if you prevent players from playing where they want, then how will they be able to join their friends? would it really be good for the game to prevent people playing with their friends on BG, forcing them to play on AR instead? that would not encourage them to WvW more, that would encourage them to quit the game.

-ken

Maybe a good start would be free transfer for low pop

I think what Xusa is trying to relay is, sometimes to best understand the situation they need to experience the situation.

Is it pretty challenging to take camps, keeps and SM with 5 to 10 people and avoid zergs, etc.? Yes, but I do miss the days when we were on a somewhat equal footing with the other servers. Fight are just better with close to equivalent groups of people.

Not only that, but that the time to brainstorm isn’t now, the time now is to do a palliative action to alleviate the problem because it’s urgent in some servers.

You guys are currently in a match up with ET and Kaineng, their numbers are not a whole lot better. At the moment you guys are probably the worst server but if you look back even two weeks it was ET. Put on your big boy pants and just keep playing, things will turn around.

The devs aren’t going to play on the lowest ranked server or any of the server’s currently getting stomped and the reason is they don’t even play WvW. At least I hope they don’t because if they do and this is how things have been for the last two years I am disappointed.

Basket of Boxes.1976:

The devs aren’t going to play on the lowest ranked server or any of the server’s currently getting stomped and the reason is they don’t even play WvW. At least I hope they don’t because if they do and this is how things have been for the last two years I am disappointed.

Errr, ET had a dev on Nob from the Adopt a Dev… I don’t know if he stayed after Nob disbanded however.

And yes, we were the ones at the short end of the stick at the time. We kinda still are, we are only getting out of rank 24 this week after 10 weeks straight on that position.

Hi, I have been playing AR and some nights like tonight I was the only one defending our keep and nearby tower.Last night the opposing army stacked 11 arrowcarts and ballistas at the supply camp armed with 3 guards.Nearby tower was also stacked and manned with 6 seige. I had to strip perimeter defences of 1 treb ,2 ballistas,1 catapult and 2 arrowcarts.10 players playing together in AR is very rare since you can not find that many players on some nights.When there is such an imbalance,EB goes deserted and many players will stay on AR battlefield.I am staying the course but it is definitely discouraging.

The root of the problem is that they are trying to balance WvW around servers.

If you look at how much of a server actually plays WvW it can vary widely.

For instance on my server IOJ, only about 1/4 of the server even touches WvW.

I read a suggestion posted by TorSailr a week or so back that sounded great.

To boil it down it went as follows.

1: Scrap the current server based WvW.

2: Create an alliance based system, let the players chose what alliance they belong to (only 1 at a time) & put a cap on how big each alliance can be. (say somewhere between 1k-2k members.

3: Separate the alliances into tiers based on size.

4: Move all the former world bonuses over to alliance bonuses.

Not only would this help to get rid of the massive imbalances between worlds but it would also give the lore writers something to work with.
Say we are not only fighting over land in the mists but fighting over treasures, magical artifacts etc… & each alliance wants them for their own reasons/purposes.

Yes, I would appreciate a dev in AR. Not for help, but because all the solutions im reading in other threads dont consider low pop, low level servers.

If you dont have people to defend your borderland, the problem about points or upgrading stuctures is a no-sense. I spent this tournament as AR commander: when also seigerager is wiped from enemy zerg, you have really little hope to survive outside your citadel or wp point.

Perhaps, in these situations, more powerful NPC could be useful. In EOTM i was able to stop enemy zergs from keep with a couple of ppl and acs with the help of NPCs (and bridges and full upgraded towers and keeps).

We could learn from eotm experience and defence tactics…..

Alysia
AR Commander

Servers have been bleeding WvW players since season 2.

Which is quite sad.

It took DAoC about 3 to 4 years to see declines in RvRvR population forcing clustering of servers

While it only took 1+ year to see GW2 WvWvW population decline substantially.

Very sad indeed. Esp since this game has so much potential.

Fuzzion.2504:

Servers have been bleeding WvW players since season 2.

Which is quite sad.

It took DAoC about 3 to 4 years to see declines in RvRvR population forcing clustering of servers

While it only took 1+ year to see GW2 WvWvW population decline substantially.

Very sad indeed. Esp since this game has so much potential.

To be fair, those older games simply don’t have the same competition. There are only going to be so many MMO players, and every time a new one comes in it’s just cutting the pieces of the pie smaller and smaller, which hurts them all the way I see it.

Basket of Boxes.1976:

You guys are currently in a match up with ET and Kaineng, their numbers are not a whole lot better. At the moment you guys are probably the worst server but if you look back even two weeks it was ET. Put on your big boy pants and just keep playing, things will turn around.

The devs aren’t going to play on the lowest ranked server or any of the server’s currently getting stomped and the reason is they don’t even play WvW. At least I hope they don’t because if they do and this is how things have been for the last two years I am disappointed.

You clearly don’t understand the situation. Our problem isn’t that we have low pop, the problem is that we don’t have any pop at all.

I don’t know if there’s any ET here, but they are generally worse, and I say that based in the fact that I myself suck and still get to spike some of them. We’ve won lots of battles against them being low on numbers even outnumbered by far. This ain’t a simple matter of “you’ll win next round”. We’ve been losing for 2 consecutive rounds because they simply have players in every map and take everything while there’s no one defending. People in AR don’t play WvW, and when they do, they see how pointless it is to do it alone and leave.

Not only that, but for 4 consecutive weeks we’ve been playing with a matchup where at least one server stomp the others, the only week this didn’t happen is this current week where kain and ET are competing against each other while we’re being their food.

xusa.4021:

You clearly don’t understand the situation. Our problem isn’t that we have low pop, the problem is that we don’t have any pop at all.

I don’t know if there’s any ET here, but they are generally worse, and I say that based in the fact that I myself suck and still get to spike some of them. We’ve won lots of battles against them being low on numbers even outnumbered by far. This ain’t a simple matter of “you’ll win next round”. We’ve been losing for 2 consecutive rounds because they simply have players in every map and take everything while there’s no one defending. People in AR don’t play WvW, and when they do, they see how pointless it is to do it alone and leave.

Not only that, but for 4 consecutive weeks we’ve been playing with a matchup where at least one server stomp the others, the only week this didn’t happen is this current week where kain and ET are competing against each other while we’re being their food.

“We’ve been losing for 2 consecutive rounds because they simply have players in every map and take everything while there’s no one defending.”

Dude… Stay on that situation for months like ET have, and then you come talk to me… Other than that, you’re just crying with your belly full.

Fuzzion.2504:

Servers have been bleeding WvW players since season 2.

Which is quite sad.

It took DAoC about 3 to 4 years to see declines in RvRvR population forcing clustering of servers

While it only took 1+ year to see GW2 WvWvW population decline substantially.

Very sad indeed. Esp since this game has so much potential.

Gw2 is a pve-centric game, they cater to their customers, Daoc was pure pvp.

To the OP, I was on bottom tier before season 1, and it was awful. If wvw is what you enjoy hop tiers, it’s a lot better than looking for a fix that isn’t going to come.

Jeknar.6184:

xusa.4021:

You clearly don’t understand the situation. Our problem isn’t that we have low pop, the problem is that we don’t have any pop at all.

I don’t know if there’s any ET here, but they are generally worse, and I say that based in the fact that I myself suck and still get to spike some of them. We’ve won lots of battles against them being low on numbers even outnumbered by far. This ain’t a simple matter of “you’ll win next round”. We’ve been losing for 2 consecutive rounds because they simply have players in every map and take everything while there’s no one defending. People in AR don’t play WvW, and when they do, they see how pointless it is to do it alone and leave.

Not only that, but for 4 consecutive weeks we’ve been playing with a matchup where at least one server stomp the others, the only week this didn’t happen is this current week where kain and ET are competing against each other while we’re being their food.

“We’ve been losing for 2 consecutive rounds because they simply have players in every map and take everything while there’s no one defending.”

Dude… Stay on that situation for months like ET have, and then you come talk to me… Other than that, you’re just crying with your belly full.

lol
I’m sorry but, what? If you suffered from this, then you must understand. If you’re responsible for paying guilds to play for you, congratulations, if not, then you’re just being an a**hole just because now you got your problem solved with money. I’m talking here about real solutions so that such problems won’t persist. I’m sure AR and other servers suffer from this now, as others did and will do in the future.

Otherwise, if you think this is something to bear with and shut up about, give me money and I’ll bring in as many guilds as we need, ok?

Someone always have to be on the bottom… Now it’s AR turn.

Yea gotta agree with my ET friends here.

We just got to a point where we liked playing the game w/ each other, we never expected to win any matches and this surge is unexpected but welcomed after being the least populated server for months and months.

AR on the bottom for two weeks. ET’s been on the bottom for months and months.

In fact, it would really figure that the second ET is potential off the bottom that the Devs change the scoring system lol.

I’m not complaining for being on the bottom of the leaderboards, my complaint here is that we don’t have anyone to fight, the best we can do right now is a zerg of 10 ppl, capture EB keep and lose it after the IR time is gone. This ain’t a matter of being on the bottom, this is a matter of never being able to get out of it.

For a long time, people here been saying that that the bottom of T8 was a dead spot and that help was needed… That spot been ocupied by Eredon Terrace for basically forever. We did called for help, and we did pointed out that if our server actually died (if everybody just got fed of our situation and quit) that this would affect the other…

You know what the community said? They said it was our problem… That it wasn’t their fault that ET couldn’t field people. No matter how much we pointed that the others would risk facing this situation, we been ignored…

Well, now ET can field people, and if you ask me what i think of that, i’m going to tell the same thing everyone else said when we were the ones on that situation: “Not our problem that AR can’t field people”.

So, sit tight, put a helmet, and try to enjoy the ride… It gonna be a rough one.

xusa.4021:

I’m not complaining for being on the bottom of the leaderboards, my complaint here is that we don’t have anyone to fight, the best we can do right now is a zerg of 10 ppl, capture EB keep and lose it after the IR time is gone. This ain’t a matter of being on the bottom, this is a matter of never being able to get out of it.

I gotya here totally. Its definitely frustrating

Would be nice I think for this reason to have some mercenary guilds that can rotate in and out of different servers so that it can be more fair throughout the game.

But ya know ET played that role for a long time… We would often have a 5 man group against multiple AR groups of 30.

Balancing pop def a downside to gw2 wvw.

Dano.5298:

Balancing pop def a downside to gw2 wvw.

Server pride (or the lack of it), is pretty much what killed balance long ago.
As long Server Pride exists (or doesn’t), population balance can never occur.

Well I’d hesitate to say ET is out of the woods just yet but I can’t disagree with you Jeknar.

Either way, feel for AR

xusa.4021:

I’m not complaining for being on the bottom of the leaderboards, my complaint here is that we don’t have anyone to fight, the best we can do right now is a zerg of 10 ppl, capture EB keep and lose it after the IR time is gone. This ain’t a matter of being on the bottom, this is a matter of never being able to get out of it.

Here is the thing though. ET actually made a forum post in WvW Recruitment to get people to transfer to their server (congratulations on making it out of 24th ET, well deserved). Not only that but I remember a few months back that Kain and ET were the bottom of the barrel and we’d pretty much farm them. So now its reversed, were the ones getting outnumbered on a daily basis. I’m not going to complain about it mainly because we’ve only been 24th for about 2 weeks maybe? ET was getting farmed for months as they said and its true that they were getting farmed by any server they were matched with. Also, “never being able to get out of it” isn’t true as ET managed to get out of it, same with Kaineng when they were 24th (I believe this was before ET and EB started tumbling down the leaderboard) for a while. We AR players need to realize that yes, were on the bottom of the leaderboard and it is highly likely that we might be here for a while as sad as it may be. Don’t give up is all I can really say because again, ET was in this situation for months yet they stuck through the ordeal and now they are no longer 24th.

Mizu.4508:

xusa.4021:

I’m not complaining for being on the bottom of the leaderboards, my complaint here is that we don’t have anyone to fight, the best we can do right now is a zerg of 10 ppl, capture EB keep and lose it after the IR time is gone. This ain’t a matter of being on the bottom, this is a matter of never being able to get out of it.

Here is the thing though. ET actually made a forum post in WvW Recruitment to get people to transfer to their server (congratulations on making it out of 24th ET, well deserved). Not only that but I remember a few months back that Kain and ET were the bottom of the barrel and we’d pretty much farm them. So now its reversed, were the ones getting outnumbered on a daily basis. I’m not going to complain about it mainly because we’ve only been 24th for about 2 weeks maybe? ET was getting farmed for months as they said and its true that they were getting farmed by any server they were matched with. Also, “never being able to get out of it” isn’t true as ET managed to get out of it, same with Kaineng when they were 24th (I believe this was before ET and EB started tumbling down the leaderboard) for a while. We AR players need to realize that yes, were on the bottom of the leaderboard and it is highly likely that we might be here for a while as sad as it may be. Don’t give up is all I can really say because again, ET was in this situation for months yet they stuck through the ordeal and now they are no longer 24th.

Oh jeez so AR has one of these people too eh? Well if anything like ET you have many like this.

Hehe that positivity! idk, I think it makes the game more fun

AR’s problem is not enough people playing WvW. but you cannot force people who don’t already want to WvW on AR to do so.

there are things you can do to change the scoring or the game mechanics so that outnumbered servers don’t have it quite so bad, but GW2 devs cannot conjure up new players to play somewhere they’re not already going to.

imagine for a moment that it’s the future, and the GW2 WvW populations have been slowly declining for 5 years, and there are now only enough WvW players to really make the game ‘fun’ and ‘massively multiplayer’ if you grouped those players onto only 9 servers instead of 24. think “server mergers”. sometime between now (future-now) and when the game came out, populations must have been high enough to support 10 servers, or 12, or 15. at some point there might have been enough players for only 23 servers.

now shift back to today. maybe the day when GW2 only has enough NA players for 23 servers is today? I know this isn’t technically true because people on T1 servers could choose to play on AR, but it may be effectively true because why would anyone on a T1 server want to?

“why would they want to?” is the key question. if AR can come up with an answer I think we’d be on our way to a solution. this isn’t an answer that can come from the GW2 devs, because the why is mostly based on the community on that particular server.

-ken

How do you know this isn’t just a very targeted recruitment thread to address a lack of wvwers on AR?

int randInt return.7810:

How do you know this isn’t just a very targeted recruitment thread to address a lack of wvwers on AR?

Because this isn’t the recruitment subforum?

xusa.4021:

Basket of Boxes.1976:

You guys are currently in a match up with ET and Kaineng, their numbers are not a whole lot better. At the moment you guys are probably the worst server but if you look back even two weeks it was ET. Put on your big boy pants and just keep playing, things will turn around.

The devs aren’t going to play on the lowest ranked server or any of the server’s currently getting stomped and the reason is they don’t even play WvW. At least I hope they don’t because if they do and this is how things have been for the last two years I am disappointed.

You clearly don’t understand the situation. Our problem isn’t that we have low pop, the problem is that we don’t have any pop at all.

I don’t know if there’s any ET here, but they are generally worse, and I say that based in the fact that I myself suck and still get to spike some of them. We’ve won lots of battles against them being low on numbers even outnumbered by far. This ain’t a simple matter of “you’ll win next round”. We’ve been losing for 2 consecutive rounds because they simply have players in every map and take everything while there’s no one defending. People in AR don’t play WvW, and when they do, they see how pointless it is to do it alone and leave.

Not only that, but for 4 consecutive weeks we’ve been playing with a matchup where at least one server stomp the others, the only week this didn’t happen is this current week where kain and ET are competing against each other while we’re being their food.

If this is how you feel after just two weeks on the bottom you better transfer now. ET was on the bottom for months and months and the devs did nothing. It was up to ET to pull themselves out of it.

If you really are stomping so many ET players stop worrying about the scores and keep having fun winning the fights. That is the only reason I stayed on ET for so long, the scores don’t really matter just enjoy stomping people.

xusa.4021:

You clearly don’t understand the situation. Our problem isn’t that we have low pop, the problem is that we don’t have any pop at all.

ET has been there, done that. Yes, it can get frustrating but as Darius suggested on the gw2wvw.net forums, stop worrying about the points, stop trying to win and stop trying to play on all of the maps. Pick a few objectives that you want to try to hold and bunker them down and learn how to defend them well. Keep your community friendly, cooperative, and fun to play with and set up events to draw people into WvW. Advertise the positives of T8 because it’s not really as dead as many people make it out to be. If you are playing against servers with decent coverage around the clock, that means guilds looking for fights that transfer to you will be able to find them.

Those are all things ET has done and it’s paid off at least twice now. Late last year and earlier this year, we rose as high as 20th and then lost some guilds. Now we’re seeing some success and larger numbers again. Maybe it will last. Maybe it won’t. We’re going to do our best to enjoy the ride either way. No matter how bad things have gotten on ET, there is always a core group of people who do what they can and keep a positive attitude about it, and that goes a long way.

To that I would add that you should learn to defend better with less. Try to anticipate where the enemy is going. Have some siege weapons ready to fight back with in the places you want to hold, even if that means running supplies from a camp on a different map. I’ve driven off fairly large groups (in the 15-20 range) with 1-2 people with some well placed siege weapons that covered the most common attack sites but were hard to counter. Make sure your server has a voice communication system and try to get as many as you can. And when that fails, roam and see what you can take, even if it’s just flipping a camp or two solo. Killing dolyaks are worth points, too, and a lone player can do that, too.

xusa.4021:

I don’t know if there’s any ET here, but they are generally worse, and I say that based in the fact that I myself suck and still get to spike some of them. We’ve won lots of battles against them being low on numbers even outnumbered by far.

ET has long said pretty much the same thing. I think everyone over estimates how big the other side is and underestimates their own side because they see all the minions, pets, and clones as opponents and don’t always see everyone fighting on their own side. You may very well have spiked me. I run a support build that’s pretty good at supporting an attack, running dolyaks, and flipping camps but not so hot at dueling. Even then, I manage to kill others in duels sometimes, but that doesn’t mean their whole server is awful. That said, AR did put up some good fights against us but based on what I saw, you may need to adapt your strategy and tactics to the population you have, not the population you had, and you could learn to place and use siege weapons better.

xusa.4021:

This ain’t a simple matter of “you’ll win next round”. We’ve been losing for 2 consecutive rounds because they simply have players in every map and take everything while there’s no one defending. People in AR don’t play WvW, and when they do, they see how pointless it is to do it alone and leave.

As others have said, ET has experienced that for months. When I first started playing WvW on ET, we were lucky if we could hold a tower on the Eternal Battlegrounds for one tick, flipping a camp was a major accomplishment, and we could get spawn camped for hours. It’s been up and down but mostly up since then.

Stop trying to cover every map. Pick what you can cover. Upgrade it. Siege it up and keep it refreshed. Manually run and speed up dolyaks to get upgrades and siege weapons done. Don’t worry about the points. Don’t worry if you lose your tower or keep even though you’ve defended i.t Play to do your best, and encourage that attitude when people show up in WvW.

Snowreap.5174:

now shift back to today. maybe the day when GW2 only has enough NA players for 23 servers is today? I know this isn’t technically true because people on T1 servers could choose to play on AR, but it may be effectively true because why would anyone on a T1 server want to?

“why would they want to?” is the key question. if AR can come up with an answer I think we’d be on our way to a solution. this isn’t an answer that can come from the GW2 devs, because the why is mostly based on the community on that particular server.

Why would they want to? So they could play against an awesome server like Eredon Terrace, of course.

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