Guild Wars 2

So what happend here? With the latest linking the server has the lowest population of any EU server by a LONG shot.

Any Anet dev around here that can comment on why they consciously destroyed the server by linking it with Vabbi that has 5-10 core players at max?

If you’re going to link servers atleast stop counting all the players that bandwagoned on there just to get to top tier servers for cheap, because obviously those players are going to leave before reset is even over.

Just a quick look on MOS shows us that the server is outnumbered atleast 2 to 1 all the time, ingame confirms that it is outnumbered on every map 24/7 the past few weeks.

It has been the same for the past 4 matchups but the current matchup also shows the issue clearly:

Gunnars Hold:
3791 kills
4932 deaths

Drakkar Lake:
9923 kills
8941 deaths

Aurora Glade:
9026 kills
9868 deaths

???? Anet logic.

To the people who are planning on transfering off of Gunnars Hold because of this mess be sure to get your gems by converting them from gold, no need to financially support this kittenshow with real currency.

The best we can do is just waiting for the new linking’s

I do find it kind of laughable that AG, a server that already had a larger population then us was linked with ROF, a server that had at least 60% of the population we had, then to top it off they put us against them, I don’t understand the logic.

However, at least being at the bottom isn’t how it used to be, there’s still fights to be found and the matchup is very active overall, you know most of the hardcore GH players don’t give a kitten about ppt, so I don’t think I just speak for myself when I say I’m not actually all that bothered

Yah we hitted rock bottom. Better make GH a guest server next linking and not a host.

But to be really fair, the only thing i can think of with this linking crap is to milk wvw players with transfers. Why else does a strong t1 server gets 2 linkings..

Thats really bad for you.

in german forum kodash is crying because of beeing outnumbered(rofl) and i said they should watch on gunnars hold, because gunnar get really racked by anet.

hope it will better for you with the next linking :-/
greet from dzago

And thanks to the new scoring, it doesn’t matter at all if the remaining GH players play WvW or just quit: The score at the end will be exactly the same. Way to go and demotivate players.

Zero.3871:

Thats really bad for you.

in german forum kodash is crying because of beeing outnumbered(rofl) and i said they should watch on gunnars hold, because gunnar get really racked by anet.

hope it will better for you with the next linking :-/
greet from dzago

That’s why we have a good laugh seeing those deso posters crying about being outnumbered.

Thanks for your sympathy though.

As a EU player all i can say is come play to NA servers…. borklinks on NA are in better shape than EU.
There are to many servers in EU, and borklink system isnt the solution for all servers.

Besides Anet dont fix stuff, they just change to how the same happens within diferent events.

Aeolus, paying for a transfer (gold or rl money) is one of the last things on my mind. We get buttkittened unasked and not going to pay a tip for that.

Well these german server are problem. They have more that enough players to be in tier 1, but for some reason we fight 80 vs 10 fights against them. Anet could count players not how badly players play and then choose matchups.

Offair.2563, i understand that,if was other way arround i would not transfer for the EU servers.

The real issue in WVW is the server structure and the WvW format , but that Anet will never change, so u guys migh have 4-6 servers stacked in one server, that might hide the issue.

I am not sure how many of the other posters here are GH or Vabbi, but as a Vabbian I thought I’d share my thoughts on this.

So to get it out of the way: There is a population problem in GH.
I play WvW quite a lot, but it still took me several days of play to actual see a time when we weren’t outnumbered, and I play both primetime and the middle of the night.
(and yes, I have seen GH+Vabbi outnumbered continually at like 5am)

Vabbi has never had this problem with any other linking, all our other hosts have had plenty of pop and we were very rarely outnumbered, but now it’s 24/7 or close enough.
Vabbi has a low population but I have seen plenty of the Vabbi WvW regulars I recognise on since the linking, so I don’t think we are the problem, or at least not the main cause of it – After all, we are used to being outnumbered like 4 to 1 in WvW, that’s like our thing.

Linking Vabbi – a server that was T9 and had been for like … forever, because we had a very low WvW population, with GH, was a bad idea though.

The best example of just how bad the population imbalance here was when a fellow guildie and friend of mine from Arrowcart Glade asked me if I could explain what was going on with GH pop, because a lot of the people from their server had been wondering and worrying about it.
The population in GH is so bad our enemies are concerned for us.
I can’t blame them really, they are not getting a good experience either, to rush to our objectives (which are paper), then take them with their 80 man blob whilst our 3-4 defenders are overwhelmed, we then lose all our points (hence why they were paper in the first place), and we slowly retake them, then repeat until people get bored of it.
This basically sums up my experiences of WvW since the linking.

As far as my talks with the GH population can tell me, GH seems to have had a mass exodus recently as one of their main WvW guilds left, and basically everybody else followed suit.
I have seen many comments about the people of GH transfering to other servers if this is to continue on map/team chat.

I will however post the link to the WvW scoreboards:
https://leaderboards.guildwars2.com/en/eu/wvw
As I write this GH is ranked 18th, which puts it below some of the linked worlds: AR, Dz, and RoF.

I will also point out the fact that we are now Red basically every matchup does mean that we get DBL every time, which further hampers population.

Shiera.3152:

I am not sure how many of the other posters here are GH or Vabbi, but as a Vabbian I thought I’d share my thoughts on this.

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Its not Vabbi nor GH fault, blame Anet here.

U had no problem because u were linked into T1! In fact, u had massive population boost by all these bandwagonners who transfer to Vabbi for cheap T1.

GH on other hand had link with UW… and there was this MU: AM x DZ x GH+UW and it was always close one. Now they give us Vabbi instead. Because ye… on paper i think u had similar population as GH… but surprise surprise only original Vabbians stayed on server. So instead of UW who had few public commanders, raiding groups we got Vabbi who have few roamers. So we get linked with lower populated server than before and we got MU where for example Dz + AM are linked together.

GH had lowest pop from all host servers and yet, we got linked with lowest pop guest server. So no surprise there is no chance.

There is no massive exodus cuz u know… even if whole server transfer off GH u cant point it as massive ^^

porem.2601:

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GH had lowest pop from all host servers and yet, we got linked with lowest pop guest server. So no surprise there is no chance.

RoF and WSR had this problem since linking started and were even linked together again even after they had the lowest population. Know how much sympathy GH gave us? None, BM, corpse jumping and spawn camping while always focusing the weakest server (us).

It sucks when this situation happens and it shouldn’t happen but all things considered I won’t shed a tear for 95% of the server, shame the few people I know from MM and Tag will be having a bad time. The rest of the server is only reaping what they sowed.

Your linkings and our current has has no comparasment at all. Maybe our last link up we had a good server but the first link ups were nowhere near as bad as you say.

Unfortunately the ppt hero’s will always go for the easy stuff, and it’s most likely that it was eb where they spawn camped you too. Our first reset vs ag/dl we had 4 ag/rof guilds all at once in our garri (apline map) for about an hour and the response we got from 1 guild was that “they were bored” 4 guilds against 20 or so defenders, I don’t recall GH doing anything like that.

As a former Vabbian who transfered out a few months before they started linking servers, I have to say that it saddens me, but I’m not surprised. During the last pre-linkage months our WvW population had critically low levels (couple of dozen regular players over the whole week, i.e. 10ish at prime). Once you shave off high tier bandwagoners, you’ll get those same numbers again. There is no way that GH can get any significant benefit from my former server, especially when compared to other linkages, like AG, where I’m now. We were with Blacktide for the first two linkages, and ended up dropping because we fought servers with higher population, then we got RoF, and there was a very noticeable boost in WvW activity.

Frankly, in order to keep up, GH would need to be linked to a higher tier server as a junior partner (like ROF with AG, or Miller with DL), or get a dual link with Vabbi + something else (preferably with more than 20 players). Otherwise they get swarmed and loose interest. These last weeks we barely saw any GH enemies, compared to the many Germans we fought, so I agree with Shiera on the population issue.

Vabbi has been plaged for a long time by WVW-passive accounts. Really I can’t see how things could improve for that server. It seems to be perma-locked into either low-pop bandwagon reserve or empty wasteland status . Except for it being linked to T1 stuff (which would mean somethig like 99% players from that T1 server and 1% vabbians, before bandwagoners decide to pour in), it can’t be of any significant use to T2 and lower servers. So you would have to add a second junior server in order for that team to be functionnal.
I still have friends over there, including very committed roamers and scouts, but in the end they aren’t many enough to really make a difference. In WvW, sooner or later, numbers decide things.

Tl;dr: Vabbi’s core population is too small to help any server, especially one that was already borderline-underpopulated like GH.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Your linkings and our current has has no comparasment at all. Maybe our last link up we had a good server but the first link ups were nowhere near as bad as you say.

Unfortunately the ppt hero’s will always go for the easy stuff, and it’s most likely that it was eb where they spawn camped you too. Our first reset vs ag/dl we had 4 ag/rof guilds all at once in our garri (apline map) for about an hour and the response we got from 1 guild was that “they were bored” 4 guilds against 20 or so defenders, I don’t recall GH doing anything like that.

I remember the T3 SMs from GH, I remember the upgrading of our keep and holding it all day in EB, I remember the karma train in our border at all times with us daily trying to get garri upgraded before guild raids started. If it wasn’t upgraded then our border was an enemy colour for the rest of the evening. I also remember GH upgrading Bay in our border and constantly flipping our keep with their zerg almost off cool down.

I also remember being outnumbered in almost every map constantly for months till Glicko finally shunted down AM and Angry Rock who were just as shafted as us.

Looking at the current scores and the last few weeks it’s very clear this is a Glicko problem as you can see other servers in complete blow out matches. A GH, SFR and Elona match up would be how our Angry Rock, RoF and AM matches were.

In making the links, Arenanet hasn’t taken into account the transfer mentality of WvW players.

That’s it.

apharma.3741:

porem.2601:

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GH had lowest pop from all host servers and yet, we got linked with lowest pop guest server. So no surprise there is no chance.

RoF and WSR had this problem since linking started and were even linked together again even after they had the lowest population. Know how much sympathy GH gave us? None, BM, corpse jumping and spawn camping while always focusing the weakest server (us).

It sucks when this situation happens and it shouldn’t happen but all things considered I won’t shed a tear for 95% of the server, shame the few people I know from MM and Tag will be having a bad time. The rest of the server is only reaping what they sowed.

This about sum’s up the situation.Which is a shame there were some nice people in GH .sigh

Svarty.8019:

In making the links, Arenanet hasn’t taken into account the transfer mentality of WvW players.

That’s it.

Perhaps they did. Linking a strong server with 2 others makes you think they want to make as much money of transfers as possible. No one goes GH or vabbi anyway so lets put those together.

I guess the sum of GH and Vabbi population look good at link time. However what ANet did not considered was: Vabbi was full of #1 bandwaggoner, that simply moved away when linked to last instead of first rank.

Dayra.7405:

I guess the sum of GH and Vabbi population look good at link time. However what ANet did not considered was: Vabbi was full of #1 bandwaggoner, that simply moved away when linked to last instead of first rank.

The funny thing is, I only meet the Vabbians I’ve known for years, when I play WvW. Sometimes I duel them when they’ve moved on to AG But we’ve lost the couple of band-wagoners we had when we were linked to FSP, not Deso anymore.

Please don’t forget that living story came out and more PvE people are coming to play with the overhaul. That means people who are frustrated have better things to do than stay in hopeless WvW match-ups. The self-reinforcement of good streaks attracting players and bad streaks making everyone leave the sinking ship has a huge impact on population on its own, much more than bandwagoners.

That’s why I believe that server linking is a hot-fix which gives ANet some time to fix the population imbalance problems. As long as demotivating the enemy from playing is the most effective strategy to win, WvW will have problems.

Deaeira.2651:

That’s why I believe that server linking is a hot-fix which gives ANet some time to fix the population imbalance problems. As long as demotivating the enemy from playing is the most effective strategy to win, WvW will have problems.

I agree, server-links as done now isn’t the solution, at best it’s a hot-fix.

Gunnars hold didnt die because of its “lack of Anet responsibility” it died because its a toxic place, nobody wants to be there, anybody whos holding out for it to get better is surprisingly disalussioned

A lot of people have left, due to band wagoners, or because it just sucks the community there, but i say let Gunnars Hold die already, you’re wasting your breath by arguing points we all know are wrong

AlmightJebus.2875:

Gunnars hold didnt die because of its “lack of Anet responsibility” it died because its a toxic place, nobody wants to be there, anybody whos holding out for it to get better is surprisingly disalussioned

A lot of people have left, due to band wagoners, or because it just sucks the community there, but i say let Gunnars Hold die already, you’re wasting your breath by arguing points we all know are wrong

Do you take your self serious mr butters aka one of the master trolls? lol.

what do you mean, band wagoners and toxic? i left CC guild about a month ago because it was useless and hardly anyone responded to it, apart from that i dont know what toxic we have, and band wagoners joining? what?

The only toxic on GH was buttered but hes on AG now so they can enjoy his troll messages.

It must have been a recent thing cos it was fine when I left it

(left as in don’t play as much any more, I haven’t changed server or anything)

I’ve been in Gunnar’s Hold since I started playing. Recently I’ve done more WvW than I used to. Since the last world linking it seems to have gone down hill badly.

Gunner Morton.8340:

The only toxic on GH was buttered but hes on AG now so they can enjoy his troll messages.

He followed Purr, not bad, not bad. And yes he was pretty mean but unfortunately also right in a lot of cases.

Anyway; anet: It’s not just that you killed Gunnars with the current linking, also the servers are a buggy mess – can you please fix that as I have honestly no idea what you want me for: You kill my thief, you kill my server, you tinker around with combat rules and people really think that they won because of their skill but it’s because the servers are lagging differently.

And I’m actually not sure if I want to hear a “we’re aware of this problem and working on it” or better nothing at all (like now) because people would freak out once they really realize this. A lot of the K/D ratios show which server is lagging bad and which good in current MUs.

Has this game really become a PvE only game?

If you sit back and think about it, this is pretty normal for anet. They have good ideas (server linking) but they usually implement those ideas horrifically (GH+Vabbi). In this case, they didn’t take into account that by linking low population servers with high population servers, people would transfer to those servers for a cheaper fee. Obviously they knew that would happen and that they’d make a fair profit from it, but apparently the population change following a re-linking wasn’t something they considered, hence why we are now faced with servers that far outnumber us even at prime time.

Couple that with the mass exodus that seems to have happened (and might still be happening, idk), well, there’s not really much point in even trying to defend things anymore. Barely anyone on gh gives a kitten about DBLs so our home border usually has hills and bay at t3 belonging to the enemy servers.

Maybe if anet introduced a limit to server transfers so that you could only transfer once per 2 server linkings, or maybe if they just paid more attention to WvW…kappa.

NekoNoKoi.9137:

If you sit back and think about it, this is pretty normal for anet. They have good ideas (server linking) but they usually implement those ideas horrifically (GH+Vabbi). In this case, they didn’t take into account that by linking low population servers with high population servers, people would transfer to those servers for a cheaper fee. Obviously they knew that would happen and that they’d make a fair profit from it, but apparently the population change following a re-linking wasn’t something they considered, hence why we are now faced with servers that far outnumber us even at prime time.

Couple that with the mass exodus that seems to have happened (and might still be happening, idk), well, there’s not really much point in even trying to defend things anymore. Barely anyone on gh gives a kitten about DBLs so our home border usually has hills and bay at t3 belonging to the enemy servers.

Maybe if anet introduced a limit to server transfers so that you could only transfer once per 2 server linkings, or maybe if they just paid more attention to WvW…kappa.

That was their intend:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/World-Linking-8-26-2016/page/4
“Our goal with World Linking is good matches. This doesn’t necessarily mean that worlds in tier 4 are intended to be competitive with worlds in tier 1, but ideally every world in tier 4 should be competitive with the other worlds in tier 4 and likewise every world in tier 1 should be competitive with the other worlds in tier 1. It would be nice if worlds in tier 4 were competitive with tier 1, but it’s not realistic since the distribution of players across worlds is not consistent.”

There’s 3 problems Anet should’ve taken into account.
They freshly turned a few servers into links and linked them with servers who had no links before. Of course the population on those fresh links is a bit higher. And of course those who hadn’t had links before but still were able to compete are stronger than those servers who had links the past few months.
Bandwagoners. But not us but anet have got the real numbers of people bandwagoning.
Third problem: EU. You can’t lock tiers on EU but anet just did that. And that not because of the languages but because we had always changing rankings, you can’t determine who is and who isn’t a Tier X server, but anet just decided. And with that people will either bandwagon or just leave because wvw is pointless. And all I’ve seen the past weeks is Karma train and Megablobs.

Jana.6831:

You can’t lock tiers on EU but anet just did that. And that not because of the languages but because we had always changing rankings, you can’t determine who is and who isn’t a Tier X server, but anet just decided. And with that people will either bandwagon or just leave because wvw is pointless.

Good way to put it as it is sadly quite true.

I’m starting to suspect that a bit of math is partially to blame for this also. The big and grand question is how and just as essentially when you actually determine the population of a server.

Considering Vabbi on the previous linking with FSP. Now FSP is a high-tier server with lots of activity, and it is quite likely that a lot of people followed FSP after the linking shifted.

Seeing as it is very few who actually play a 100% WvW AND play every day, the population has to be derived from an average over time. It is entirely reasonable to suspect that they calculated the average over the full two months of the linking, or, maybe one month in the middle of the period.

This means that the population numbers that ANET expected Vabbi to have was not the number they had on day one of the new linking with GH.

This is just my theory about how we ended up here. I still find the linking system fundamentally flawed, and there’s not much you can except merging servers.

Now, merging can be done elegantly by providing all users a heavily discounted price to move to a certain selection of server, and auto-move the rest to one specific one after a deadline.

They messed up all linkings, not just GHs.

ETA: I agree on your last 2 paragraphs though. Although I’d rather seee permanent links between the lower tiers which can be broken up at some point. Right now nothing is made for the monsterblobs that were created, so I’d go away from that anyway. But alas, that also depends on what happens to the rest of the game.